His name is Steve Henson, and his little-known story is the personification of the American Dream.

You’ve probably never heard of Steve Henson, but you are aware of his legacy and impact on the American way of life.

Steve was from the little town of Thayer, Neb., population 62 in 2010, or less than half of what it was when Henson left in the middle of the Great Depression. Looking for a better way of life, Henson “rode the rails” to California where he landed a job driving a truck for 25-cents an hour.

After marrying his high school sweetheart, the Hensons headed north to America’s final frontier: Alaska. Steve had picked up the plumbing trade and saw lots of opportunities to make some serious money in Alaska, where a construction boom had begun.

A hard worker who also enjoyed cooking, Steve accepted the responsibility of preparing food for the construction crew. The men who made up the construction crews in Alaska in the 1950s fit the stereotype one would expect: rough, tough, and difficult to please.

These were “men’s men” who liked to eat meat. Salad and vegetables? Not so much.

“It’s tough to feed men up in those bush jobs,” Henson later recalled in an interview with the L.A, Times. “If they don’t like something, they’re as likely to throw it at the cook as they are to walk out cursing. I had to come up with something to keep them happy.”

Steve was always a tinkerer in the kitchen when it came to spices. And maybe it was something he picked up “riding the rails,” but he was aware in the south, buttermilk-based dressings were popular.

“Buttermilk is a good base for anything,” Henson said. “You can use it to make a hundred things in the kitchen.”

With that buttermilk foundation, Henson added a little garlic, a little parsley, a little pepper, and some mayonnaise for consistency and viola, he had a concoction that would get the grizzliest Alaskan construction worker to eat a salad gleefully.

Henson didn’t really know what he had though, and when he left Alaska in 1954 with a nice little nest egg, his goal was to simply open a ranch in California. He found a perfect location for his dude ranch, a 120-acre farm with a natural spring and breathtaking views just outside of Santa Barbara.

Unfortunately for Steve, he was a better cook and plumber than cowboy or resort owner. His ranch hosted lots of college parties from nearby Santa Barbara, and a few company picnics but he was struggling and had to sell 54 acres of land to make ends meet.

And while Steve regaled guests with songs he played on his guitar, stories from his hobo days riding the rails and working in the Alaskan bush, it was the food that seemed most popular. And while the fresh cut steaks were a favorite, Steve’s Alaskan concoction was by far what made the biggest impression.

To keep customers happy, Steve frequently sent them home with a quart of it if. But he didn’t really start to realize its commercial potential until a visitor from Hawaii requested 300 jars of it for a big barbecue he was hosting in a few days. There wasn’t enough time to get that many glass jars, but Steve was able to send him back to the islands with spice packets. All he had to do was add buttermilk and mayo and he’d be good to go.

“He called a few days later wanting more,” Henson recalls. “He said everyone had gone wild over the thing.”

That’s when it dawned on Steve he might be on to something, so he made four dozen packets and convinced a local grocer to try selling them, just to see.

When the packets disappeared within the first few hours, the grocer was convinced an employee swiped them. After a clerk assured him they sold out that fast, the grocer ordered another gross. Those sold out in two days.

About 10 years later in 1974, Henson sold the recipe for his “concoction” to Clorox for a cool $8 million. That may sound like a lot, but its really not. That same recipe generated more than $500 million in sales last year alone.

Today, you’ll see Henson’s invention for sale in every grocery store in the country under the name of the ranch he founded in 1954: Hidden Valley.

Henson died in 1999 a very rich man. He was able to live long enough to see his ranch dressing surpass Italian as America’s favorite in 1993. The gap has only widened over time as ranch dressing’s popularity has exploded. In fact, it’s the preferred choice by over 40 percent of Americans, compared to Italian, its closest competitor, at 10 percent.

While Henson invented it to convince construction workers to eat a salad once in a while, today you find it on pizza, fries, chicken wings and even in stuffing.

Even more amazing though than its popularity today is its story and how it can be traced to a simple plumber who’s propensity to tinker in the kitchen turned him into a millionaire and his “ranch” into an American staple.

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Gregory Orear is the publisher of The Journal. His award-winning weekly column, “What’s Going On,” has been published in four newspapers in three states for more than 20 years. He can be contacted at gorear@nujournal.com.