Jess A. Hanson unloading chickens at the Corvallis railroad depot, 1935.

Jess A. Hanson unloading chickens at the Corvallis railroad depot, 1935. The Hanson Farm shipped chickens all over the world. Photograph by Ball Studio, Corvallis. [OSU Archives - Hanson Leghorn Farm Records.]

Hanson Leghorn Farm Records, 1917-1967

Hanson, Jess Allen, 1887-1978
14 cubic feet and 300 photographs

Scope and Content Note

This collection has been minimally processed and is organized into several general series. These include correspondence, breeding and production records, financial records, incubation and banding reports, advertisements and other promotional literature, honors and awards, poultry industry trade magazines, and photographs and artwork. Almost all of the materials document the Hanson Leghorn Farm, a nationally significant poultry breeding business located in Corvallis, Oregon.

Photographs include views of various aspects of the Hanson Farm operation -- pens, brooder houses, other outbuildings, and prize chickens; homes on the Hanson estate; deliveries of chicks to the Corvallis train station for delivery around the world. Also included are portraits of Jesse A. Hanson, images of other family members, and views of hunting and fishing activities. Prints have been made of most of the nitrate film negatives.

New Accession

Provenance

Most of the collection was acquired from the estate of Jess A. Hanson in 1979. Additional materials were transferred from the Horner Museum in the summer of 1996.

Historical Note

Jess A. Hanson was born on October 21, 1887 in Warren, Ohio. While studying agriculture at the University of Missouri, he became interested in the poultry industry. Hanson moved to Oregon in 1911 to work with James A. Dryden of the Oregon Agricultural College Poultry Husbandry Department.

In 1913 he began his own poultry breeding business on a 30-acre farm close to the OAC campus. The operation was very successful, consisting of 350 acres by the time Hanson retired in 1966. Hanson's Leghorn chickens won many egg laying contests over the years. His pen at the Storrs (Connecticut) contest in 1928/29 set a new world's record and established Hanson as a pre-eminent breeder of chickens for egg production. During his fifty year career, Hanson's Leghorns won over 100 contest awards and set at least 21 world records.

Hanson married Lora Milam, sister of OAC Home Economics Dean Ava Milam, in 1914. They had two children, Elinor and Richard M. After Lora Hanson's death in 1961, Jess married Florence Satchwell. In 1936 Hanson received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Oregon State College, later established the J.A. Hanson Scholarship in poultry science at OSU, and was elected to the Oregon Poultry Hall of Fame in 1971. He died in 1978.

Related Materials

Poultry Science Department Records (RG 182) and Photographic Collection (P 111); Harriet's Collection #181 & #2320; MC - Hanson, Jesse A. See the Manuscript Collections guides for the records of several Oregon poultry industry associations.

Shelf Locations

SR 5/8/3/10-60
SR 5/8/2/10-60
SR 5/8/1/10
SR 4/1/1/a & e-f (oversize boxes)
Oversize drawer 6
2/2/9/41-42 (photographs)
2/2/3 (oversize photographs)
2/1/4 (glass negatives)
10/1/10/42 (nitrate film negatives)

Preliminary Inventory

(box SR 5/8/3/40)

(box SR 5/8/3/10)

(box SR 5/8/3/50)

(box 5/8/3/20)

(box 5/8/3/60)

(box 5/8/3/30)

(box 5/8/2/40)

(box 5/8/2/10)

(box 5/8/2/50)

(box 5/8/2/20)

(box 5/8/2/60)

(box 5/8/1/10)

(oversize box SR 4/1/1/e)

(box 2/2/9/42)

(box 2/2/3)

(box 2/1/4)

(box 10/1/10/42)

Accession 96:031

(box SR 5/8/2/31)

(oversize box SR 4/1/1/e)

(oversize box SR 4/1/1/f)

(oversize box SR 4/1/1/a)

(oversize drawer 6)

(box 2/2/9/41)

(box 2/2/3)

(box 2/1/4)

(box 10/1/10/42)

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