The Ruins of Washburn A Mill, Minneapolis

The tasteful ruins on the banks of the Mississippi River from which rises the Minneapolis’ Mill City Museum serves as a reminder to the site’s dramatic history. The site was the location of Minneapolis' largest industrial building and the largest mill in the world. The Washburn A Mill was built in 1874 by Cadwallader Washburn, a businessman from LaCrosse, Wisconsin. The building was seven story tall, and housed a flour mill powered by the flowing waters of the Mississippi River, which was diverted through a canal to turn giant waterwheels located fifty feet below street level. With 200 workers the Washburn’s mill was one of the city’s largest employers. The ruins of Washburn A Mill now houses the Mill City Museum. Image credit: Ali Eminov/Flickr Minneapolis at that time was considered the flour milling capital of the world, with nearly twenty flour mills operating along the river. The mills received grain from the vast wheat belt that stretches across the Northern Plains. Rails then carried the milled flour to the port city of Duluth on Lake Superior, and to eastern US destinations for export and domestic distribution. During its early years, many considered Minneapolis flour inferior to flour produced elsewhere because the mills used spring wheat instead of winter wheat which was generally preferred. Spring wheat, which is planted in spring and harvested in the fall, better suited to Minnesota’s weather cycle but it has the disadvantage of producing a darker and easily spoiled type of flour. But in the 1870s, millers developed new techniques to grind flour that greatly improved flour quality. One of the machines they used, called the “middlings purifier”, removed the husks from the kernels of wheat by subjecting partially ground flour to blasts of air to blow away the bran. This produced a high quality white flour, even better than winter wheat flour. Minneapolis flour soon became the most desired flour in the county.