Qualla: Fromm Brothers Fur and Ginseng Farm

Fromm Brothers Fur and Ginseng Farm: Introduction

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zefram, CC BY 2.0 de. In 1901, four boys in rural Marathon County, Wisconsin -- ages eight to thirteen -- read a magazine article that would alter their lives. A single silver fox pelt had sold in London for $1,200, a sum that could buy an entire Wisconsin farm. Walter, Edward, John, and Henry Fromm made a pact on the spot. They would raise silver foxes. They called themselves "The Company," and they meant it. Over the next four decades, these brothers would mortgage their mother's dowry, survive two world wars, pioneer veterinary vaccines, and become the world's largest producers of both silver fox pelts and American ginseng. Their farm complex still stands in the Town of Hamburg, a place on the National Register of Historic Places, a monument to audacity, ingenuity, and the stubborn refusal of four brothers to quit.

Image: Zefram | CC BY 2.0 de

Fromm Brothers Fur and Ginseng Farm: The $1,200 Dream

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The silver fox is not a separate species but a rare genetic variant of the red fox, its dark pelt shimmering with silver-tipped guard hairs. In the 1880s, breeders on Prince Edward Island had figured out how to produce them in captivity, guarding the secret until an escaped fox l...

Image: Public domain

Fromm Brothers Fur and Ginseng Farm: Mother's Gamble

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jeff the quiet, CC0. One silver fox was not an empire. The brothers needed more breeding stock, and in 1915, James Kane had three silver foxes for $6,500. The family's ginseng harvest hadn't yet produced that kind of money. While their father was away in Iowa, the brothers convinced their mother to m...

Image: Jeff the quiet | CC0

Fromm Brothers Fur and Ginseng Farm: Roots and Remedies

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jeff the quiet, CC0. The ginseng operation ran in parallel with the foxes, and it demanded equal ingenuity. The brothers fought blight with slaked lime and blue vitriol, powered their root-washing pumps with a car engine, and dried their first harvests in the house's attic. When they needed forest lo...

Image: Jeff the quiet | CC0

Fromm Brothers Fur and Ginseng Farm: Vaccines Born of Desperation

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jeff the quiet, CC0. The brothers tinkered relentlessly with their foxes' diet, discovering that deboned horse meat caused rickets and that adding ground bones cured it. By 1922, their foxes ate a menu that included beef, mutton, veal, woodchuck, rabbit, fish, eggs, milk, bread, vegetables, and fruit...

Image: Jeff the quiet | CC0

Fromm Brothers Fur and Ginseng Farm: An Empire in the Fields

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jeff the quiet, CC0. By 1929, the Fromm brothers were the world's largest producer of both silver fox pelts and ginseng. Their cousin John Nieman and his son Edwin had partnered with them in 1920, and the enterprise had expanded to include a second operation in Thiensville, where the milder climate p...

Image: Jeff the quiet | CC0