Benwood Food Products, Processed in Sandusky

Pictured above is a wooden codfish box packed by the Bender-Woodward Company in Sandusky, Ohio. The Benwood brand name was a combination of the company’s officials, M.J. Bender, Jr. and W.W. Woodward. The Benwood brand of food products were produced in the 1920s

One of the partners in the Bender-Woodward Company

From about 1896 to 1902, M.J. Bender, Jr. operated a grocery store at the southwest corner of Hancock and Monroe Streets; by 1908, he had moved his business to the southeast corner of Hancock and Water Streets. Around 1910, Mr. Bender went into business with W. W. Woodward. Bender was the president of the company, and Woodward was the Vice President. (Mr. Woodward had previously been associated with Hoover-Woodward.) The Bender-Woodward store, which operated as a wholesale grocery business, was in business in Sandusky until 1939. Eventually, M.J. Bender Jr.’s son Elliot became associated with the company.

An advertisement in the May 20, 1924 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal promoted the Benwood Brand.

In 1924, Bender-Woodward Co. was just one of several local sponsors of the Garland Cooking School, which met for an entire week at the Dilgart & Bittner Co. on Washington Row.