In 1879, twenty-four-year-old Joy Morton, who had recently arrived in Chicago from his family’s home in Nebraska, started working for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad.
Joy Morton started working for Elkins, Wheeler & Company in 1880. In the resulting business deal, Joy Morton acquired one-fifth of the company salt business that sold and distributed salt.
It was incorporated in Illinois as the Joy Morton & Company after the firm's senior partner, Ezra Wheeler died and Morton purchased the family interest.
In 1901 he created the International Salt Company and later, in 1910, owing to the public’s backlash against trusts, changed its name to The Morton Salt Company, whose table salt became one of the nation leading consumer brands.
In 1902, the company acquired the salt holdings of the failed National Salt Company of New Jersey, an association of hundreds of small salt companies. The following year Morton expanded his control of the salt production process by acquiring a fleet of ships for transporting salt from Michigan to Chicago.
In 1924, they developed iodized salt to help prevent goiters, enlargement of the thyroid gland due to lack of iodine. When Americans rising blood pressure became a concern, they created a salt substitute and lite-salt option.
Joy Sterling Morton (September 27, 1855 – May 10, 1934)
