Edward Avery McIlhenny

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Edward Avery McIlhenny, circa 1930.

Edward Avery "Ned" McIlhenny (1872 – 1949), son of Tabasco brand pepper sauce inventor Edmund McIlhenny, was an American businessman, explorer, and conservationist.

Born in 1872 at Avery Island, Louisiana, McIlhenny was educated privately before attending Dr. Holbrook's Military School in Sing Sing (now Ossining), New York. McIlhenny enrolled at Lehigh University, where he joined Phi Delta Theta fraternity, but he dropped out of school to join Frederick Cook's 1894 Arctic expedition as an ornithologist. In 1897 he financed his own Arctic expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska, where he helped to save over a hundred stranded whaling fleet sailors (including Japanese adventurer and entrepreneur Jujiro Wada).

McIlhenny claimed in his book The Alligator's Life History that he killed an alligator measuring over 19 feet in length — said to be the longest American alligator ever recorded.

Marriage

He married Mary Givens Matthews, daughter of William Henry Matthews and Mary Campbell Given, on June 6, 1900, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

As businessman

An advertisement for Tabasco pepper sauce from circa 1905, during Edward Avery McIlhenny's tenure as president of McIlhenny Company.

On his return to Louisiana, McIlhenny assumed control of McIlhenny Company, overseeing Tabasco sauce production as president of the organization until his death 51 years later. During his tenure, McIlhenny expanded, modernized, and standardized sauce production; and experimented with new ways of promoting the world-famous product, such as advertising on radio.

McIlhenny also introduced the now ubiquitous modern screw-top Tabasco sauce bottle in 1927, replacing the original cork-top bottle used since 1868. He also redesigned the iconic Tabasco diamond logo trademark, largely creating the version known today.

Nutria issue

In a venture unrelated to Tabasco sauce, McIlhenny also operated a nutria farm on Avery Island from 1938 until his death. During that time, he intentionally released a large number of nutria into Louisiana's wetlands, as did a few other people. At the time, state and federal agencies advocated for these releases. They believed nutria would provide a profitable new fur resource and help manage the spread of overly abundant plants such as water hyacinth and alligator weed.

After the releases, however, the feral population became unmanageable, and its overwhelmingly harmful impact on Louisiana's wetlands became apparent. (Nutria feed on vegetation that is crucial to sustaining Louisiana's coastline and protecting the state's sugarcane and rice fields.) By 1960, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries estimated the nutria population along coastal regions to exceed 20 million. The latest report from the U.S. Department of the Interior estimates that 100,000 acres (400 km²) of Louisiana's coastal wetlands are currently being affected by nutria "eat outs".

Though McIlhenny is popularly said to have introduced nutria to Louisiana, the nature of his role in the animal's proliferation is a complex one. He publicly embraced the notion that he was the first to import and release nutria into the wild; however, historic inquiries prompted by McIlhenny Company suggest that other individuals preceded him in the state's nutria business. The Tabasco Web site, TABASCO.com, states that McIlhenny was "at least the third nutria farmer" in Louisiana and at least the second to intentionally release nutria into the state's wild.

As conservationist

McIlhenny founded the Bird City wildfowl refuge on Avery Island around 1895, which helped to save the snowy egret from extinction. Enrolling the help of businessman and conservationist Charles Willis Ward, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Sage Foundation, McIlhenny was instrumental in securing nearly 175,000 acres (710 km²) of south Louisiana coastal marshland as wildfowl refuges. He banded over 285,000 birds during his lifetime and ran a game farm on Avery Island that experimented with breeding new animal varieties. He helped to introduce the nutria to Louisiana, although — contrary to popular belief — he did not import the creatures to Louisiana, nor was he the first Louisianan to set them loose in the wild on purpose.

McIlhenny used his 170-acre (0.69 km²) personal estate, known as Jungle Gardens, to propagate both Louisiana-native and imported plant varieties, including azaleas, irises, camellias, papyrus, and bamboo. He wrote numerous academic articles, mainly about birds and reptiles, oversaw the publication in English of two European botanical treatises, and edited Charles L. Jordan's unfinished manuscript The Wild Turkey and Its Hunting (a book often mistakenly attributed to McIlhenny). He also wrote books about alligators, egrets, and African-American gospel music, including:

A Buddha temple in Avery Island's Jungle Gardens, the former personal estate of Edward Avery McIlhenny.

• Befo' De War Spirituals (1933).
• Bird City (1934).
• The Alligator's Life History (1935).
• The Autobiography of an Egret (1940).

Death and legacy

McIlhenny died in 1949, three years after suffering a debilitating stroke; he is buried on Avery Island. Today, Jungle Gardens and Bird City continue to serve as havens for bird and plant species; they are also popular tourist destinations. Furthermore, the nearly 175,000 acres (710 km²) of coastal marshland he helped to set aside as wildfowl refuges continue to exist as state wildlife areas. McIlhenny's illustrated and written documentation of plant and animal life on Avery Island was donated as a collection to Louisiana State University. The E. A. McIlhenny Collection of natural history books at Louisiana State University is named in his honor.

See also

• Edmund McIlhenny
• John Avery McIlhenny
• Walter S. McIlhenny
• Tabasco sauce