Happy Birthday, Sliced Bread!

The following is reprinted from the July 6, 1928 edition of The Constitution-Tribune:

SLICED BREAD IS MADE HERE.
Chillicothe Baking Co. the First Bakers in the World to Sell This Product to the Public

Announcement by M.F. Bench of the Chillicothe Baking Company of a new sliced bread service is significant in that it gives the Chillicothe Baking Company the distinction of being the first bakers in the world to sell sliced bread to the public.
The idea of sliced bread may be startling to some people. Certainly it represents a definite departure from the usual manner of supplying the consumer with bakers loaves. As one considers this new service one cannot help but be won over to a realization of the fact that here indeed is a type of service which is sound, sensible and in every way a progressive refinement in Bakers bread service.
Briefly this new Sliced Bread Service may be described as follows:

Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine. A prototype he built in 1912 was destroyed in a fire,[2] and it was not until 1928 that Rohwedder had a fully working machine ready. The first commercial use of the machine was by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, which produced their first slices on July 7, 1928.[3] Their product, "Kleen Maid Sliced Bread", proved a success. Battle Creek, Michigan has a competing claim as the first city to sell bread presliced by Rohwedder's machine; however, historians have produced no documentation backing up Battle Creek's claim.[4] The bread was advertised as, "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped."[5]