| In 1883, Historian Sutton listed the
Farmers’ Grain and Milling
Company as one of the oldest milling businesses in existence in Sidney, Ohio. The site
first served many years as a warehouse which had the good fortune of being located on the
west bank of the feeder canal then in later
years, near the railroad when it came to town. Known as
the ‘old stone bridge warehouse’, it was initially built by Frazier and
Frankenburger in the 1830s, then bought by the Nutt brothers in the late 1840s. The Nutts
owned it for forty years, finally selling to E.J. and Warren Griffis. After nearly being
destroyed by fire, E.J. (pictured at right) partnered with his father to build a
new facility to which they added a milling establishment. Griffis sold this to Captain
Nutt in 1904, who ran it until his death in 1911, when the estate administrators sold the
property. Named the Sidney Grain and Milling Company, then The Farmers’ Grain and Milling Company, annual shipments of up to 150,000 bushels of coal, lime, salt, cement, seeds and feed were handled by the business while the ‘milling plant’ had the capacity of producing up to 30 barrels of flour daily. They manufactured the "Triumph Flour" which according to the Sidney Commercial Club was "widely and favorably known and sold in northern and western Ohio, being sold by nearly every grocer and flour man in this territory." [Back] [Next] [Up] [New Search] Industry segment written
in January, 1998 by |
E.J. Griffis |
|
