History of Minneapolis

Minneapolis grew up around Saint Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi. In early years, forests in northern Minnesota were the source of a lumber industry that operated seventeen sawmills on power from the waterfall. By 1871, the west river bank had twenty-three businesses including flour mills, woolen mills, iron works, a railroad machine shop, and mills for cotton, paper, sashes, and planning wood. Due to occupational hazards of milling, six local sources of artificial limbs were competing in the prosthetics business by the 1890s. The farmers of the Great Plains grew grain that was shipped by rail to the city's thirty-four flour mills. Millers have used hydropower elsewhere since the 1st century B.C., but the results in Minneapolis between 1880 and 1930 were so remarkable the city has been described as "the greatest direct-drive waterpower center the world has ever seen."

A father of modern milling in America and founder of what became General Mills; Cadwallader C. Washburn converted his business from gristmills to truly revolutionary technology including "gradual reduction" processing by steel and porcelain roller mills which were capable of producing premium-quality pure white flour very quickly. Some ideas were developed by William Dixon Gray and some through industrial espionage from the Hungarians by William de la Barre. Charles A. Pillsbury and C.A. Pillsbury Company across the river were barely a step behind, hiring Washburn employees to immediately implement the new methods. The hard red spring wheat that grows in Minnesota became valuable ($.50 profit per barrel in 1871 increased to $4.50 in 1874) and Minnesota "patent" flour was recognized at the time as the best in the world. Millers cultivated relationships with academic scientists especially at the University of Minnesota. Those scientists backed them politically on many