Labor omnia vincit

Charles Martin Roser was Born in 1864 in Elyria, Ohio. It is believed that he earned his fame and fortune by developing the recipe or baking process for the famous Fig Newton cookie, and selling it to the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco). Roser initially had an interest in a cheese business in Wellington, OH, and by 1899, was operating a candy and cookie factory in Kenton, OH that was turning out fig cookies. Legend has it that Roser sold Nabisco the rights to his fig cookies for 1 million dollars, the modern equivalent of about 19 million. Nabisco has maintained for some time that the Fig Newton was invented in 1891 by Philadelphia inventor James Henry Mitchell. Mitchell is said to have invented the duplex dough-sheeting machines and funnels that made the jam-filled cookies possible.

According to a Nabisco marketing director, Nabisco purchased Mitchell's fig cookie, his machines, and his Kennedy Biscuit Works outside Newton, MA in 1898, the same year that Nabisco itself was formed by the merger of the New York Biscuit Company and the American Biscuit & Manufacturing Company in Chicago. Nabisco observed further that although they are familiar with several stories claiming credit for the cookie, they have no record of Charles Roser.

More recently, however, Nabisco has seemed more willing to take other possible contributions to the confectionary invention into account. After all, the huge Merger that formed Nabisco in 1898 merged 114 bakeries with 400 ovens with a combined capacity to consume 2 million barrels of flour a year, yeilding 360 million pounds of crackers annually. The merger was front page news across the country. The New York Times reported that "all the biscuit and cracker companies between Salt Lake City on the west, Portland, Maine, on the east, and St. Louis and New Orleans in the south, will tomorrow morning be under one management." Individual credit for specific innovations in any one of those given markets or bakeries would be difficult to establish with any degree of accuracy after all this time. Some sources say that Roser sold his recipe to the Kennedy Biscuit Works before it was swept up by the Nabisco merger.

Whether Charles Roser actually invented the Fig Newton, or whether his fortune was merely the result of the giant, industry consolodation of 1898, what is certainly clear is that he came to St. Petersburg in 1910 with his wife, Ruth, and quickly established himself as one of the city's foremost developers, promoters and philanthropists. Roser's first major projects included construction of the Palm and Poinsettia hotels, and the establishment of Mound Park Hospital's home for nurses, and Mercy Hospital for black residents. He also donated land for schools, including 5 acres in 1913 for the Roser Park School.
Roser also purchased property at 5th st. and Central Ave, building retail stores & a cafeteria.
Roser began work on the Roser Park subdivision in 1911, purchasing C.D. Hammond's 10-acre citrus groves south of the city for $12,000. He bought an additional 5 acres from J.P. Lynch. Apparently, people didn't think he could make a go of it, and remarked at the time that "no one would drop money into that mud hole." But in 1913, Roser purchased more land from Alex Linn, increasing his holdings around Sixth Street and Seventh Avenue S. The Evening Independent finally took notice of "the first subdivision to be opened outside the city, with all brick streets and every other city convenience is the new suburb by C.M. Roser - Roser Park. Georgia Engineering is laying brick. The 60 lots will have 12 blocks of brick streets and sidewalks." Brick was a rare and expensive material in those days, but Roser insisted upon its abundant use.

The subdivision soon expanded to 80 homes between Sixth and Eighth streets, south of Seventh Avenue S, Roser's own mansion at Seventh Ave and Seventh Street S. One guest of the home remembered it being "full of art treasures," and said of Roser that he was "quiet, small, serious, and very much the businessman."

Roser purchased the Edgewater Inn in 1913, investing $20,000 in renovations, and had spent at least another $30,000 for 5 more acres along Ninth and Sixth Streets S, excluding landscaping and improvements. Much of this land, including Booker Creek, he gifted to the city on February 27, 1918, the official birthday of Roser Park.

According to newspapers, "Roser was constantly spending money on the park, streets and nurses home (Roser Hall) and never accepted any money from the city." In 1923, he built the Royal Palm Hotel on Fifth Street S, but the lease fell apart during the depression of the 1930s.

After several weeks in Mound Park Hospital following a few years of illness, Charles Roser died on April 12, 1937, at age 73.
As for fig Newtons, we're still chewing on that one...

Sources:

FSU Photo Archives; "Cookiemaker, vegetarian put Roser Park on the map" By SCOTT TAYLOR HARTZELL © St. Petersburg Times, published November 27, 2002; "Cooking up a Legend"By MARY KATE FRANK Staff Writer