7.1. SR 07-29-2002 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Flour Mill The flour mill is one of the institutions Elk River is proud of and it is gratifying to know that it is doing a profitable business. Sherburne County Star, December 16, 1897. Godfrey's flour mill in Uppertown burned in 1868, and the firm of Mills and Houlton rebuilt it as a three-story frame flour mill with a two hundred barrel per-day capacity. The Elk River Milling Company (with W.H. Houlton, Henry Castle, and W. G. Babcock as officers) produced a high grade of flour sold to Eastern and European markets.6x The mill burned in 1902. The property was sold and in 1907, a new four-story, 300-barrell capacity mill was erected by John Hill and Charles Hartwell of Massachusetts. During a May 1912 flood, the new flourmill was undermined, along with the dam and bridge. The Massachusetts buyers had failed to pay the mortgage and were foreclosed in the same month that the dam broke, returning ownership to Elk River interests. 62 Starch and Box Factories Starch factories manufactured potato starch and provided Elk River area farmers with another market for their produce. A factory was opened in 1890 by T.S. Nickerson, and another in 1910 by C.H. Caley. About 1914 a factory was founded to manufacture boxes for market crops. Grain Elevators Tine Graves and Bailey Grain Elevator was constructed in 1922 on the Jefferson Highway opposite Oak Street. It replaced O.J. Whitman's feed mill on the same site. Adjacent to potato and coal warehouses and the Northern Pacific Freight House, it appears to be at least a portion of the structure at this location today. Another elevator owned by the Elk River Milling Company was located across the tracks to the north. Flour milling on the Elk River apparently ended with the devastating flood of 1912, and saw milling closed with the Houlton planing mill fire in 1923. This reflected the general demise of flour and lumber industries in centers such as Minneapolis and Stillwater, but some early businesses have persisted through changes of ownership to the present time, as mills in Northfield and Hastings can attest. In Elk River as in other river towns, mill owners acquired considerable wealth and were influential citizens. While Ard Godfrey had only a speculative interest in Elk River, the Houlton and Nickerson families were engaged in milling and banking for several generations. Graves and Bailey Grain EIet~ator, Highway 10. Photo 2002. Elk River Historic Contexts and Phase II Downtown Commercial Area Study 34