Oak State Products history

There has been a commercial cookie factory in or around Wenona for 42 years, with only an 89-day baking break, which is what it took for a new bakery to be built just outside town after a 1963 fire destroyed the original one downtown.

Here was the birth of “Pay TV”. In 1980, Oak was the largest employer in Crystal Lake, with 2,500 people on its local payroll. For example, in the 1970’s Oak developed the technology to make over-the-air subscription television service possible and economical.

Here was the birth of “Pay TV”. In 1980, Oak was the largest employer in Crystal Lake, with 2,500 people on its local payroll.

In 1983 George Markham sold Archway to senior executives Thomas Olin and Eugene McKay, Jr.

In 1988 the company's date-oatmeal cookies were lauded as the most healthful cookies on the market by a consumer watchdog organization, and four other Archway varieties finished near the top of the ranking of 250 cookie brands.

In 1991, the company announced plans to close its doors in Crystal Lake and leave town by year’s end.

"Moreover, the product once described in 1992 to McKay-a fruit tart-was not the product at all.

In 1993, it netted $2.3 million; Goulding says the new Nabisco product is not responsible for all of that, but it has helped.

Controversy arose in 1994 when the company canceled the Illinois franchise of Oak State Products, Inc., after it discovered that Oak State had been making fat-free cookies for Nabisco.

1995 Alliance with Kellogg's Boosts Sales

Reshuffling among leading cookie makers had been taking place for several years, with number two Keebler being purchased by Inflo Holdings, Inc. in 1996 and subsequently merging with number three Sunshine.

In a national promotion launched in 1997, "The Big Cookie Tour," the company gave away over one million free cookies in cities across the United States.

In October 1998 Archway was sold to Specialty Foods Corporation of Deerfield, Illinois, in a deal reportedly worth close to $100 million.