Welcome to the blog about our podcast “This Week in the West.” We’ll share the show’s scripts on our blog each week. If you want to listen, click above, subscribe on your favorite podcast app or check back here every Monday.
If you have questions, ideas or feedback about the podcast, you can reach out to podcast@nationalcowboymuseum.org
May 19, 2025: J.R. Simplot
Howdy folks, it’s the third week of May 2025, and welcome to This Week in The West.
I’m Seth Spillman, broadcasting from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
On this podcast, we share stories of the people and events that shaped the history, art and culture of the American West—and those still shaping it today.
It was the 1920s, and John was just a teenager standing in a shed in southern Idaho trying to figure out how to make potatoes last a little longer.
His experiments worked. And from that humble start, John Richard “Jack” Simplot transformed the way Americans ate for the rest of the century.
We remember J.R. Simplot, the Potato King, on the week of his death, May 25, 2008.
Simplot was born to a family of Iowa farmers in 1909. The family then looked for opportunities in the West and resettled in southern Idaho. He was 14 when he dropped out of school, and soon after was trying to figure out how to dry and store potatoes. The more you could grow, the more you could store, the more you could make, according to Simplot.
He was soon selling potatoes and buying land, selling more potatoes and buying more land. In 1932, he launched his own company. He’d figured out how he could turn all aspects of farming the common spud – from seed to distribution – into a thriving enterprise.
In his 90s, Simplot shared his “collected wisdom” with Esquire magazine and said this about the secret of making potatoes:
“Potatoes? Put them in ground that has been in alfalfa for five or six years. And then plant certified seed. Get your seed from the upper country so there’s no diseases in it. You keep turning the potatoes in the sacks. You got to keep them cool. Plant them the first of June, dig them early so they don’t get any disease in them, and then raise your own seed. By that method, you can grow a crop of potatoes.”
Sounds easy, right? What Simplot added was the innovation of the form in which the potatoes came.
When the United States entered World War II, the government was looking for ways to feed its troops with food that stayed stable no matter where in the world it was shipped. Simplot’s answer: dehydrated potatoes and onions, earning him a huge government contract.
Simplot’s empire was growing, but hit warp speed with the hungry consumers of the 1950s.
In 1953, Simplot and his food scientists developed the method to freeze precooked French fries.
Those frozen fries lasted a long time, could be shipped and stored easily, and once they were refried, they delivered a consistent taste and texture. Crispy on the outside. Fluffy on the outside.
Simplot told Esquire about his ideal product: “You want a potato big enough to get a long fry.”
Just as Simplot was cracking the French fry code, another innovation was percolating around the country: restaurant chains with multiple locations serving up a simple menu quickly to eager customers.
Fast food was born, and fast food needed French fries.
In 1967, Simplot struck a deal with Ray Kroc, the man behind McDonald’s, to become the chain’s exclusive supplier of frozen fries. This partnership helped launch the modern fast food era and turned Simplot’s company into a juggernaut.
Within a few years, the company was producing millions of pounds of frozen French fries each day. Today, French fries are the world’s single biggest-selling foodservice product. Every year, the average American eats around thirty pounds of frozen French fries.
As the fast food business exploded, Simplot was able to expand his holdings. He invested in other crops, cattle and fertilizer. He was an early investor in the computer chip manufacturing industry.
And then there was the land. Simplot’s footprint in the West was expansive. When he was alive, he was one of the country’s biggest individual landowners. His ZX Ranch in Oregon was the largest cattle ranch in the country.
Despite his wealth, Simplot maintained a rugged Western persona. He dressed plainly, often wore cowboy boots, and spoke his mind.
In 1996, Simplot was inducted into our Hall of Great Westerners here at The Cowboy.
He remained active in his company well into his 90s. At the time of his death on May 25, 2008, at the age of 99, he was one of the wealthiest men in America.
In the coverage of his death, the Idaho Statesman newspaper shared this quote Simplot gave about how he wanted to be remembered: “Oh, hell, I don’t care what they say … But I think I’ve made enough marks around here that somebody will say ‘Well that guy was pretty smart. He hung on.”
The J.R. Simplot Company continues to operate as a privately held, family-run business headquartered in Boise. It remains one of the world’s largest suppliers of frozen potatoes and a global leader in food processing, fertilizers, and agricultural innovation.
And with that, we’ve finished up another side order of “This Week in The West.”
Our show is produced by Chase Spivey and written by Mike Koehler.
Follow us and rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you hear us. That helps us reach more people.
We can follow us on social media and online at nationalcowboymuseum.org.
Got a question or a suggestion? Drop us an email at podcast@nationalcowboymuseum.org
We leave you today with the words of former Idaho governor Butch Otter, who was also a former son-in-law of J.R. Simplot: “His legacy is his vision. Compared to him, the rest of the world was wearing bifocals.”
Much obliged for listening, and remember, come Find Your West at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
