Curtis Feed Company

Mobile, Alabama — Curtis Feed Company, 1930s

Delivery drivers for the Curtis Feed Company pose beside their trucks in Mobile, Alabama, during the 1930s. The vehicles and storefront display the distinctive checkerboard pattern of the Ralston Purina Company, one of the most recognizable marketing designs in American agricultural commerce.

Founded in 1894 in St. Louis, Missouri, Ralston Purina became one of the largest producers of animal feed in the United States, supplying farmers with feed for horses, cows, hogs, and poultry. Local distributors like Curtis Feed Company played an important role in connecting national manufacturers with regional farms across the South.

Photographs like this capture an interesting moment in commercial history. The trucks, early delivery vehicles of the automotive age, reflect the growing importance of motor transport in the 1930s, when goods could be delivered quickly to farms and rural communities that had once relied mostly on railroads or wagons.

Beyond its practical purpose, the bold checkerboard branding was an early example of powerful visual marketing, making Purina products instantly recognizable across the country.

📸 Courtesy of the University of South Alabama Archives

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