Today, while Adhesive Pest Management (APM) is becoming accepted as a sound method of reducing or eliminating pesticide use in commercial and residential areas, you might be surprised that one source of such environmentally-friendly products --The Tanglefoot Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan -- is celebrating its' th year in this industry.

A century ago, flies were a huge nuisance in both businessplaces and homes. Horse manure in the streets, open sewer ditches and unsanitary food handling practices --not to mention the lack of window screens --resulted in hordes of the pesky, disease-carrying critters.

About 1880, sticky-coated paper sheets were developed to trap flies. More effective than swatters and safer than poisons, flypaper was difficult to manufacture in quantity, as the adhesive used either dried out too quickly, or saturated the paper carrier and caused a gooey, unusable mess. Customers were forced to visit their local drugstore, and their flypaper order was coated while they waited --perhaps sipping a phosphate from the soda fountain and bemoaning the fact that first class postage had just doubled to two cents.

During the 1880's, Grand Rapids, Michigan became the world center for flypaper manufacturing, thanks to druggist William Thum. An immigrant from Germany and a chemist by trade, Thum gave the job of preparing flypaper to his four sons: Otto, Hugo, William and Ferdinand. The brothers loathed the task of mixing and brushing the paper with adhesive, but in the hopes of earning enough money to get through college, Otto suggested they approach the task with zeal, and make flypaper for all the city's drugstores. Their creative efforts paid off, not only earning their college tuition, but resulting in a successful business venture that has endured for well over a century.