Henry Drushel Perky (7 December 1843  June 29 1906) was a lawyer, businessman, promoter and inventor. Perky is the inventor of shredded wheat.

Early life

He was born in Saltcreek township, Holmes County, Ohio, the fifth son of Daniel Jefferson Perky (ca. 1808-?) and Magdalena Drushel (ca. 1812-?), both of Pennsylvania. He married his wife Susanna Melissa Crow (1845-?) on 3 August 1865 in Mount Hope, Ohio. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in Nebraska. He was elected to the Nebraska State Senate in 1868 when only twenty-five years old (although other sources suggest he represented the eighth district from 1874-1876). The couple lived at Omaha, Nebraska and Wahoo, Nebraska before 1880. Henry went to Colorado for his health in 1880 where he was an attorney for the Union Pacific Railroad. Sue followed from Wahoo later that same year and, in Denver, Colorado, she gave birth to their only surviving child, Scott Henry Perky (1880-?). Scott H. Perky went on to be a writer; the life of his father was the subject of one of his books. (In 1920, Scott Perky invented a shredded wheat product called Muffets, marketed by his company Toasticks; Muffets were later sold by the Quaker Oats Company as "the round shredded wheat.")

Steel Car Company

In 1884, the assets  a patent and a half-finished car  of the bankrupt Robbins Cylindrical Steel Car Company were acquired by Byron A. Atkinson (1854-19?? ), a well-to-do Boston furniture dealer with some background as a machinist. To promote his cylindrical steel rail passenger car, Atkinson hired Henry Perky, who had quite a reputation for making money during times that ruined other businessmen. Their firm was the Steel Car Company.

While the railcar was being built, Perky was busy trying to find a place to build a huge plant for building steel cars. He first proposed Chicago, Illinois, but when this didn't generate significant interest, in 1888 he proposed Lincoln, Nebraska, and there the car would be named the "City of Lincoln." This idea too failed to catch on, so Perky moved on.

Perky finally found backing in St. Joseph, Missouri and there, in late 1888, at a cost of some $70,000, he erected a building on a large plot of land east of the city "beyond Wyatt Park." He also organized an exposition, to be called the National Railway, Electric and Industrial Exposition, but more popularly known as the "New Era Exposition." The exposition was set up on the grounds of the Steel Car Company, with the western portion of its building as the main hall of the exposition.

On the night of 15 September 1889 a fire swept through the main building of the exposition. The ten cars being built, the Steel Car Company plant, all the assets of the Steel Car Company were a total loss. Perky, not one to be easily discouraged, took the original Robbins car (that had been outfitted as a private car for Atkins' personal use) for a transcontinental tour. Though it attracted a good deal of attention, it attracted no orders.