Milling around — Minneapolis' Mill City Museum pays homage to the flour industry

MINNEAPOLIS — Some people might question the wisdom of building a museum inside a flour mill that exploded once and caught fire twice. But, as real-estate agents say, it's all about location.

It's fitting that Minneapolis' Mill City Museum is housed within the ruins of the old Washburn "A" mill — the forerunner to General Mills — because it helped to make Minneapolis the "flour milling capital of the world" from 1880-1930.

And it's fitting that the museum is located next to St. Anthony Falls — the only falls on the Mississippi River — because it supplied the mills with water power to grind wheat into flour.

And it's fitting that the museum offers a view of the old Pillsbury "A" Mill across the river — another major mill that helped give Minneapolis the "Mill City" nickname.

The numerous mills that sprang up along St. Anthony Falls industrialized flour production and had a major influence on how Americans got their daily bread. The surrounding Great Plains grain belt supplied up to 175 railroad cars of wheat a day, to be made into flour and shipped all over the world.

This was also "the cradle of processed foods," according to Laura Salveson, manager of the Mill City Museum. When you eat a bowl of Wheaties or Malt-O-Meal cereals, pop open a tube of Pillsbury dough, heat a frozen pizza or open a can of Green Giant veggies, you're experiencing the Mill City's influence.

The Mill City Museum pays homage to the milling industry and the humble wheat kernel that made it possible. If you walk along the biking trail near St. Anthony Falls, you can see the backside of the museum rising from fire-blackened mill ruins. You can also see the remains of other early mills along the Mississippi's banks.

The original Washburn "A" Mill was built in 1874 by Cadwallader C. Washburn. At peak production, it ground enough flour to make 12 million loaves of bread in a day, according to the Minneapolis Historical Society. But all that flour was hazardous.

In 1878, the mill blew up in a dust-flour explosion that killed 18 people and destroyed other nearby mills.

When Washburn rebuilt the mill, he replaced the grinding stones with automatic steel rollers, establishing the first automatic roller mill in the world, according to General Mills' historic archives. The new mill could grind Minnesota's hard red spring wheat into flour that rivaled the whiteness and baking properties of winter wheat flour.