Lots of promotion-- including use of a married couple that were under 45 inches tall-- plus a five story factory that occupied a full square block downtown kept the Woodward Candy Company in Council Bluffs quite visible. Pioneers of Butterscotch and inventors of Butter Brickle, their candy was distributed across the country, and was quite good!
Seeking a safer occupation following an rail yard accident that cost him the tip of a finger, John G. Woodward began work at a Council Bluffs candy store. He eventually bought it, and grew the company into the largest candy manufacturing operation in the West. In this podcast, Richard Warner of the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County, traces the history of the company, including the claim they were the inventors of the Butter Brickle flavor and that Omaha's Blackstone Hotel was the first to use this to make Butter Brickle ice cream. The podcast also explores possible reasons such a successful company would close so suddenly, what happened to their recipes, and their advertising icons, Jean and Inze Bregant, Council Bluffs "little people." Read more and see some photos with the Historical Society's History Online story: https://sites.google.com/thehistoricalsociety.org/woodward-candy/ufo