Mr. Johnson added the following, showing the present status of the milling
industry in Minneapolis:
"The description of the process of the manufacture of flour so well
given above, conveys no idea of the extent and magnitude of the milling
structures, machinery, and buildings employed in the business. Many of the
leading millers and millwrights have personally visited and studied the
best mills in England, France, Hungary, and Germany, and are as familiar
with their theory, methods, and construction as of their own, and no
expense or labor has been spared in introducing the most approved features
of the improvements in the foreign mills. Experimenting is constantly going
on, and the path behind the successful millers is strewn with the wrecks of
failures. A very large proportion of the machinery is imported, though the
American machinists are fast outstripping their European rivals in the
quality and efficiency of the machinery needed for the new mills constantly
going up.
"There are twenty-eight of these mills now constructed and at work,
operating an equivalent of 412 runs of stone, consuming over sixteen
million bushels of wheat, and manufacturing over three million barrels of
flour annually. Their capacities range from 250 to 1,500 barrels of flour
per day. Great as these capacities are, there is now one in process of
construction, the Pillsbury A Mill, which at the beginning of the harvest
of 1881 will have a capacity of 4,000 barrels daily. The Washburn A Mill,
whose capacity is now 1,500 barrels, is being enlarged to make 8,500
barrels a day, and the Crown Roller Mill, owned by Christian Bros. & Co.,
is also being enlarged to produce 3,000 barrels a day. The largest mill in
Europe has a daily capacity of but 2,800 barrels, and no European mill is
fitted with the exquisite perfection of machinery and apparatus to be found
in the mills of this city.
"The buildings are mainly built of blue limestone, found so abundant in the
quarries of this city, range and line work, and rest on the solid ledge.
The earlier built mills are severely plain, but the newer ones are greatly
improved by the taste of the architect, and are imposing and beautiful in
appearance."