Thomas D. Campbell

Thomas D. Campbell (1882–1966) was the "World's Wheat King". On the farms of his Campbell Farming Corporation he grew more wheat than any other farmer or corporation. He pioneered industrialized corporate farming. As a consultant in agriculture, he advised the British, French and Soviet governments, including advising Stalin in 1929 on large-scale farming for the Soviet Union's first five-year plan. He served in the U.S. military in World War II and developed the napalm fire bomb used in the Pacific Theatre. He became a brigadier general in the Air Force in 1946.

Biography Thomas was born Thomas D. Campbell Jr., on February 19, 1882, in North Dakota to Thomas Campbell Sr. and Almira (Richards) Campbell. The couple were of Scottish descent and had immigrated to North Dakota from Perth, Ontario, in 1875. The couple built a log cabin on 80 acres of land that they had purchased. Thomas was valedictorian of Central High School in 1898, attended preparatory school at Upper Canada College, and later graduated from the University of North Dakota. He was the first to graduate in engineering from the latter school, in 1904. In 1906 he married Bess McBride Bull, daughter of George Bull, co-founder of Cream of Wheat, and the couple moved to Pasadena, California. He acquired $2,000,000 financing from J.P. Morgan and began farming on the Crow Indian Reservation north of the Big Horn River in Montana.