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Inventor of Kitty Litter Turned a Small Business into a Million Dollar Company
By Emily Sanchez

Back in the late 1940s, it was usual for cat owners to keep a pile of sand in the yard from which to fill the cat's litter box. But, because of the extremely cold temperatures in the winters, this was not a very practical method, and so ashes hauled from the fireplace were used as a substitute. However, even that left many sooty paw prints about as sawdust too was not absorbent enough.

Edward Lowe Helped a Neighbor with Cat Trouble

Henry Lowe was operating a small business that sold industrial absorbents that included sawdust as well as concrete. His son Edward Lowe, just recently returned from the United States Navy, joined in the business and thought that trying out a product called Fuller's Earth was a good way around the problem. Ed Lowe was to become the inventor of Kitty Litters, and he began by filling ten plain brown paper bags with five pounds of Fuller's Earth and called it ‘Kitty Litter' and tried to sell them at the local pet store.

At the beginning, the response was not very encouraging and the inventor of Kitty Litter had to dole out free samples. However, this did the trick and made cat owners come back for more. They were ready to pay the asking price of 65 cents per bag.

Encouraged by this response, the inventor of Kitty Litter then hit the road and went to pet stores as well as wholesale companies for more business. He even had to clean hundreds of cat boxes at cat shows in return for a booth where he could hawk his Kitty Litter. He even sold the Kitty Litter from the back of his old 1943 Chevy Coupe, and had driven thousands of miles all over America to kick-start his fledgling business.

The inventor of Kitty Litter soon saw his business grow to become an industry and his invention was so successful that Kitty Litter was to become the generic term for his product. His cat litter had odor controlling properties as well as high absorption that resulted in cats being more user-friendly and they were no longer being put outside for the night. Today, the cat is not only an inside pet, but is also America's favorite pet being even more popular than dogs.

Ed Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter certainly had come a long way from the days of 1948 when he filled plain brown paper bags with clay pellets and handed them to distressed neighbors. In 1990, Ed Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter sold his company Edward Lowe Industries at a time when it was selling over US$210 million of cat box litter yearly.

Interesting Facts About Cats
Contrary to popular belief the domestic cat does not have nine lives. They do possess extraordinary skills that enable them to escape from impossible situations and they do tend to run from accidents only later to fall to the effects (as the adrenaline leaves their systems), this may go some way to explaining the assumption that a cat has nine lives.

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Author Details:
Emily Sanchez writes for various web sites such as www.thatozof.com, www.informationjunkie.co.uk & www.simplytop.com

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