Historic Flour Mill prior to demolition in MN
Osakis Milling Complex, Osakis Minnesota
The Osakis Milling Company, built in 1887, was one of west central Minnesota's few extant nineteenth century flour mills, a basically intact example of early steam powered roller mill construction, and a building which once housed a regionally-known flour mill which was once the most important industry in the community of Osakis.
Osakis, located on the shore of Lake Osakis in Douglas County, was first settled in the early 1860's and platted in 1866. One year later the community's first mill, a woodframe tow mill known as Sanderson's Mill, was constructed. In 1868 or 1869 a second little-known mill, Stevenson's Mill, was built by Donald Stevenson, apparently on the site of the present Osakis Mill. In 1887 modern flour milling technology was introduced in the area when the present Osakis Mill was constructed. From 1887 through 1926, under several different owners, the Osakis Mill became the most important single industry in Osakis and produced a variety of flours, graham meals, bran, and middlings products which were marketed in central Minnesota, the Twin Cities, and in East Coast markets.
The three-story brick mill building was built in 1887 with the assistance of Charles French for original owners Schay and Chalfont. The $50,000 structure housed the most modern roller mill equipment and was powered by a coal-fueled steam engine. The mill was probably one of outstate Minnesota's earliest automatic roller mills. Porcelain and steel rollers which replaced mill stones causing a revolution in milling technology had been introduced in the state only a few years earlier when the Washburn C Mill in Minneapolis, completed in 1879, became one of the first fully automatic roller mills constructed in the country. Roller mill technology became known more widely after the Miller's International Exhibition held in Cincinnati in 1880. The newly built Osakis Mill was linked with the nearby St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba rail line by a track spur constructed in 1887 which brought carloads of coal to the mill and transported its products out of Osakis. The mill's steam engine, which was located in a power plant behind the main building, was linked to the track spur by a "coal sidewalk" along which wheelbarrows of coal were hauled. The mill originally produced 150 barrels of flour per day, but by circa 1909 was producing 400 barrels per day and processing nearly a half million bushels of central Minnesota and North Dakota wheat annually. Patent and other types of flour, graham meal, bran, middlings, and other products were sold regionally or shipped in barrels and cotton sacks to wholesalers and bakeries in the Twin Cities and the East Coast. An electric generator installed at the mill in the 1890s provided Osakis' only electric service through about the 1920s. In 1912 a 30,000-bushel capacity grain elevator, which is still standing, was constructed south of the mill. By 1916 the mill was employing 20 people who worked around the clock during some seasons and "Oh-sa-kis" brand flour had become well-known in the region.
The mill was operated under several different owners throughout its history. It was built in 1887 for the partnership of Schay and Chalfont, about which little is known. From 1888 through circa 1895 the mill was owned by Conrad Herberger, a wealthy German-born farmer and businessman who had come to Osakis in 1867. From 1888-1890 the mill was managed by his sons, Frank and George Herberger, who in 1890 left the mill and started a general store which became the basis of the regional Herberger's Department Store chain. In 1895 the mill was acquired by the Osakis Milling Company, which incorporated that year with three local investors as its principal officers. The mill underwent several re-incorporations and ownership changes (including ownership by International Elevator during the 1940s and the Grain Terminal Association in the 1950s) until circa 1961 when it was purchased by the Pollard family.
The mill has undergone several technological changes as well. Flour was produced steadily at the mill by steam powered rollers from 1887 until 1926 when it became a feed milling facility. The mill was converted from coal fueled steam engines to gasoline powered equipment circa 1938. In approximately 1940 all of the flour milling equipment and the steam generator were removed from the building.
The Osakis Mill was one of about 275 flour mills operating in rural Minnesota during the 1890s. These mills, combined with about 25 mills standing in the Twin Cities at the time, produced enough flour to make Minnesota one of the nation's most important flour-producing states in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today, few nineteenth-century flour mills remain standing in the state. The Osakis Mill was included in a fifteen-month historic sites survey of seven west central Minnesota counties which was conducted in 1983-84 by the State Historic Preservation Office. The survey staff determined that the mill is one of only two nineteenth-century flour mills standing in the seven counties, each of which once contained flour mills. The Osakis Mill is the most intact of the two standing mills.
The mill was demolished in July 1990.
Building Description
The Osakis Milling Company is located on the south shore of Lake Osakis just north of the Great Northern tracks which run through the northern portion of the town. The mill structure itself is located at the northwest corner of Lake Street and Central Avenue. At the southwest corner of this intersection is the mill's grain elevator, built in 1912. The mill and elevator are surrounded by various other grain elevators and commercial structures, and are located one block north of Osakis' central business district.
The Osakis Mill, built in 1887 for an estimated $50,000, is a good example of early roller mill construction. The mill is a three-bay, three-story brick building topped by a central one-story brick monitor, with a one-story, five-bay wing extending west of the main building. The mill was constructed of soft, stretcher bonded cream-colored brick laid on a fieldstone foundation. The building retains its original segmental arched door and window openings located within bays which are recessed slightly, and 1/1 sash. The building has undergone some alteration throughout its history. The west wing of the mill was once two stories tall, but has been reduced to one story. an enclosed wood frame loading dock was added and later removed from the main facade.
A gable-roofed wood frame storage shed has been added to the west end of the building.
In circa 1945 the northernmost (rear) bay of the upper two stories and a portion of the top floor monitor were removed. The original flour milling equipment and steam generator were removed from the mill circa 1940.
The wood frame grain elevator immediately south of the mill was constructed by the Osakis Milling Company in 1912 to store up to 30,000 bushels of wheat. Steel grain moving equipment once extended across the street to link the elevator with the upper stories of the mill. The elevator has been covered with metal siding in more recent years, and a small addition has been built on the north facade.
