Harold Warp

Born 1903-12-21 Minden, NE (USA)

Died 1994-04-08
Ft. Lauderdale, FL (USA)

Buried
Schiller Park, IL (USA)
Eden Memorial Park

Harold Warp was born in and grew up in a sod house near Minden, Nebraska. His parents were Norwegian immigrants. He was the youngest of 12 children and was orphaned at age 11 when his mother died. Warp went on to become a wealthy businessman-inventor and the founder of Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska, a tourist attraction that has been visited by more than 4 million people. Warp was a pioneer in the consumer plastics industry who developed the idea of the plastic baggie and was the first manufacturer of polyethylene food wrap. These two innovations and many of his other ideas were eventually licensed to large chemical manufacturers. Warp was the chairman and founder of Flex-O-Glass, a Chicago plastics company. Warp registered at least 30 patents in plastics. He used his money to buy historic buildings from his hometown of Minden, and later from other places, move them to Pioneer Village, and furnish them with period artifacts, furniture and tools. He created a kind of living history museum to celebrate a vanishing small town America and its ideas of home, work and progress.

Places Lived

Minden, NE
Chicago, IL
Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Author Of

Biography
Nonfiction

Keywords

Memoirs; Technology

Occupation

Inventor
Business Owner

Places Worked

Harold Warp's Pioneer Village, Minden, NE
Warp Brothers Products
Flex-O-Glass, Chicago, IL

Honors

“150 Notable Nebraskans”, Number 59 on the Journal Star Sesquicentennial List of Significant Nebraskans
Harold Warp was the recipient of numerous awards including the Addison Sheldon Award in 1974, the Horatio Alger Award in 1979 and the Distinguished Nebraskalander Award in 1984.

Associations

Pioneer Village, Minden, NE
Harold Warp Pioneer Village Foundation

Bibliography

Russia--As I Saw It. 1958.
Over the Hill and Past Our Place. 1976.
A History of Man's Progress from 1830 to the Present. 2012. (a complete list of items on display at Pioneer Village)

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