The Complex Tale of America's 'Blue-Collar Millionaire'

Percy Ross made his fortune in plastic garbage bags (after some other entrepreneurial endeavors), culminating in the sale of his company, Poly-Tech, for $8 million on July 20, 1969—the same day man walked on the moon. 

A Longreads story by Jacqui Shine details Ross' "pitch-perfect rags-to-riches tale" as the son of poor immigrants who suddenly found himself with more money than he knew what to do with. 

And so he started spending his windfall on everything from business investments, real estate, and luxury clothes and cars to "legendary parties" that hosted both stars and "plain folk," including a $25,000 one he threw in 1972 in Minneapolis for local airport skycaps who'd treated him well when he was a nobody. But in the mid-70s, he fixated on a new self-assignment: "to give away money and be known for it," the ad agency director who helped him back then told Backstage in 1981.

Read the full story on Newser.com

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