These days, peanut butter is so ubiquitous that people write songs about it, but in the 1920s, peanut butter was a unique food item, and Alabama was on the cutting edge of production.

Companies in a few small Alabama towns have produced peanut butter over the years – and two still do (more below) – but the tiny Pike County town of Brundidge celebrates its peanut butter manufacturing heritage with the Johnston Peanut Butter Mill Museum and a festival held each October.

Brundidge now has a population of about 2,000 residents. In the 1920s, it had fewer than 1,000 residents yet still managed to become one of the country’s largest peanut-butter making hubs.

In 1928, J.D. Johnston of Brundidge noticed peanut butter was fast becoming a popular food item and opened a mill in 1929 in hopes of taking advantage of the marketing trend.

“J.D. Johnston realized that peanut butter was gaining popularity as a tasty, inexpensive source of protein so he set up a crude machine in the small upstairs area of a wood-frame building just off Main Street and started one of the first commercial peanut butter mills in the Southeastern United States,” according to the Brundidge town website. “Peanut butter’s popularity spread and the Johnston Peanut Butter Mill flourished. Before long the mill was shipping out more than 2 million jars of the popular foodstuff each year.”

In 1935, A&P was selling a one-pound jar of Johnston’s Peanut Butter for 15 cents, according to an advertisement in the Troy Messenger.

The Johnston company was the town’s largest industry from the early to mid-twentieth century, according to an article by the Encyclopedia of Alabama. It began with manufacturing peanut butter but eventually operated “cotton gins, warehouses, and an ice plant. The family-owned company also manufactured Velvet bread, Johnston brand peanut butter, and Johnston’s mayonnaise,” the article said.

Johnston vs. Johnson

Not to be outdone, two brothers with a similar name to Johnston’s opened their own mill a few years later, according to a history on the town’s website.

“In the early 1930s, brothers Grady and Oscar Johnson opened another peanut butter mill on the south end of town and named their company the Louis-Anne Peanut Butter Company after Grady’s children,” the website history said. “The two peanut butter mills provided a giant economic boost to the Brundidge economy and sustained the town during the Great Depression.” Grady Johnson’s children were named Louis (known as Buddy) and Anise.

The Louis-Anne Peanut Butter Company was one of the first companies to market peanut butter directly to children. The company’s logo featured two children known as the Peanut Butter Kids.

The logo gained fame for another reason.

“Louis went on to distinguish himself in both the Canadian and United States Air Forces during World War II,” historian Jaine Treadwell wrote. “He was a fighter pilot and also a private pilot for Gen. Montgomery. As a reward for his bravery during a forced landing while the general was on board, Louis Johnson was given permission to choose a design to designate the general’s plane. He chose the Louis-Anne logo.”

After the war, Buddy Johnson went into the peanut butter business with his father.

Treadwell said he also designed Coca-Cola billboards.

Anise Johnson married Jeff Sorrell. “Sorrell Chapel on the Troy University campus is named in memory of Anise, the peanut butter kid,” Treadwell wrote.

Both Johnston’s Mill and the Johnson brothers’ Louis-Anne Peanut Butter Co. were out of business by the 1960s.

Is peanut butter still made in Alabama?

Another company was manufacturing peanut butter in the same period. About 30 miles away in Enterprise, Ala., Sessions Co. produced peanut butter for the retail market from about 1932 until 1985, according to company president Bill Ventress. Sessions still makes peanut products but not peanut butter.

Sessions peanut butter was marketed as School Day Peanut Butter, Pal Peanut Butter and Goldcraft. Pal was packaged in a tin pail like the one seen here.

At least two companies still make peanut butter in Alabama, according to Kaye Lynn Hataway with the Alabama Peanut Producers Association.

They are: Golden Boy Foods (8th Avenue brand) in Troy and Medders Family Farm in Montevallo.

Brundidge museum and festival

Brundidge officials have preserved the original Johnston Mill building as a museum. The building on Church Street, shown above, is open by appointment and open to the public during the annual Peanut Butter Festival in October.

As many as 7,000 people attend the festival where visitors can “indulge in all kinds of peanut butter treats as well as participate in some interesting peanut butter projects,” Alabama Travel said. It also features a 5K Peanut Butter Run, live entertainment, games, a presentation on peanut researcher George Washington Carver, the Nutter Butter Parade and a recipe contest. Find information here.