The November 1958 board meeting of The Upjohn Company was a momentous one. At this meeting, held in Building 24 in the Downtown Kalamazoo complex (Building 88 was not yet built), the board below voted to take the company from a private one to a public company. Upjohn Company private stock spilt 25 for 1. In 1959 the private shareholders sold 2.41 million shares (17% of the total number) to the public at $45 a piece. Those sales totaled $108.5 million. There were quite a few new millionaires in Kalamazoo and a million was a lot of money back in 1959.

 

This board meeting was commemorated in an article titled "The heart of The Upjohn Company: our Board of Directors". All the Upjohns, Daltons, Lights, Gilmores, Parrishs and Parfets shown below were considered to be Upjohn family members.

 

On January 5, 1959 The Upjohn Company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange by Gifford Upjohn.

 

Below is an undated list of common shareholders when the company was still private. The total number of shares at this time was 558,785. Sale of any shares in the era of private ownership was rare.

Here is an 1890 Kalamazoo Gazette listing all the shareholders at that time

And here are a few resignation letters from the 1950s.