Wheat: American Roller Mills

During the late nineteenth century entrepreneurs in Minnesota began constructing new mills, using technology developed in Switzerland and Hungary. Minnesota farmers had been growing grain and milling flour since 1823, and by the 1870s Minneapolis was home to some of the nation’s finest mills, thanks to St. Anthony Falls, which provided an abundant power source. The first American mill using steel rollers as opposed to millstones was built in Minneapolis in 1879.

The leaders in Minneapolis milling were Cadwallader C. Washburn, John Sargent Pillsbury, and Pillsbury’s nephew, Charles Alfred Pillsbury. Washburn had founded the Minneapolis Mill Company in 1856 but did not acquire his own mill until 1866. He built another mill in 1871 and by 1874 had the capital to construct yet another, larger mill. Within ten years Washburn’s flour was winning awards. Washburn went into partnership with John Crosby in 1877 to form the Washburn, Crosby Company. In 1899 the company concentrated on promoting its Gold Medal flour, named for the award it had won at the 1880 Cincinnati Milling Exposition in Ohio.