Founding of Mission Pak
Page worked as a busboy (which he initially believed meant steering a bus) and a soda jerk until he had earned one thousand dollars. With this capital, in 1917 he bought a vacant store and founded a distribution company, Mission Pak, which shipped California fruits like the orange as holiday gifts to cold-weather customers.
The idea came to Page as he boxed oranges home to his mother and brother one year earlier: thirty-seven residents at his boardinghouse had asked if he'd do them the same courtesy; the company proved enormously successful. (The Mission Pak jingle is still familiar to many older Angelenos: "Say the Magic words, say Mission Pak and it's on its merry way! No gift so bright, so gay, so right, give the Mission Pak magic way!")
At the time of Page's death, the president of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County observed, "The story of George C. Page embodies the American dream. His like will not come our way again."
Read more about this topic: George C. Page
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