 White-corn cerealine flakes as a breakfast cereal were invented, perhaps accidentally, by Columbus, Indiana, mill worker James Vannoy circa 1884 or 1887.Vannoy's 1902 obituary said he found through experimentation a way to run the milled grain through rollers so that it would come out "in thin layers or flakes.He went to his employer, Joseph F. Gent, with the discovery.