This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

purchased the pickle factory and all salting stations. They enlarged the plant, held open house one day a week for visitors and improved equipment and gave birth to the American Pickling Company. In 1929, the Standards Brands, Inc., operated the plant Widlar Division, which absorbed the Widlar Company.
In the June 19, 1930 edition of the Stone County Enterprise, the following was reported, "... cucumber bv the thousands of pounds are arriving daily and forces of men and women are kept at work late into the night and on Sunday to get the fresh products into the brine. Large trucks from the five stations that use the plant as their salting station, come into the plant here, each evening, their capacity is around 8,000 pounds each. This plant is at the present time paying out to the farmers over this territory from $500 to $1,000 daily for cucumbers. They have received approximately to date 135,000 bushels of cukes. They are also bottling olives and expect to being operating within the next sixty days, their salad dressing department, the equipment for same has already been installed. This department will average a carload of finished products per day." Y	______
Through the years, the pickle plant continued to prosper and grow, changing owners until in 1961, Stbne County voters went to the polls and voted their approval of a $450,000 BAWI bond issue to finance expansion of the pickle plant, then owned by Brown-Miller Company. The vote was 1,989 for and 22 opposed. The new expansion had 73,000 sq ft of floor space and was built of steel, brick and masonry. It connected to the existing plant on the east side and housed the "newest and most modern" equipment for increased production. While the pickle plant coasted through four wars and a depression, the 1980s began to take its toll, and Rainbow Foods, Inc., owner of the pickle plant, began to cut employees. And despite the assurances of Richard Hewling, general manager, in an interview with the Stone County Enterprise, that "Wiggins is very centrally located to the heart of our customer market area, and as a distribution center, will remain a very important part of our operations..." the pickle plant slowly shut its doors putting an end to an era of Wiggins' history.
Today, Wiggins is one of the fastest growing communities in Mississippi. Residents enjoy a high quality of life and are less than an hour from Hattiesburg and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Information contributed by the Stone County Enterprise.
contributed by the Stone County Enterprise.