Thomas Lister Kay

Thomas Lister Kay was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1837 or 1838.^[a] Kay immigrated to the United States in 1857, working in several textile mills on the East Coast before moving to Oregon in 1863 to begin a job as a loom boss at a mill in Brownsville.^[1]

After the Brownsville mill burned in 1865, Kay found work at a variety of different mills in Oregon, but returned to Brownsville after the mill was rebuilt in 1875. He continued working there until the mill was dissolved in 1888.^[1]

Kay left the Brownsville mill as a co-owner, with a personal fortune of $55,000. Kay was interested in starting his own company and began exploring the possibility of opening a mill in Salem, Oregon.^[4] After securing $20,000 in backing from the citizens of Salem, the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill Company was incorporated in 1889.^[5]

Kay died at St. Vincent Hospital in Portland, Oregon, on April 27, 1900.^[6] According to The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography: "At the time of his death Kay was recognized as the foremost woolen manufacturer in the Pacific Northwest."^[7]

Kay married Ann Slingsby in 1857, shortly before he left for the United States.^[8] The couple had ten children, five of whom died before their parents. The couple's surviving children included Thomas B. Kay, who took over the family business after his father's death; and Martha Ann "Fannie" Kay, who would go on to found Pendleton Woolen Mills with her husband, C. P. Bishop, and three sons.^[1][9]