Cereal Mills and Millers

By Carl D. Sheppard

A Centennial History of Akron 1825-1925

Summit County Historical Society, Akron, Ohio 1925, p 294-302

AKRON sprang up as a center of cereal manufacturing, ended its first fifty years with cereal manu­facturing its most important industry, and reaches its cen­tennial year with the value of its cereal manufactured products exceeded only by that of rubber products. Two eras of almost equal length mark the city's cereal history. The first was of individual enterprise, and the second, of corporate development. One was the era of flour; the other of breakfast foods. One extended from 1807 to 1886; the other from 1886 to date.

     Akron became a flour center because of the engineer­ing genius of a pioneer, Dr. Eliakim Crosby, for whom Crosby st. was named. But even before Dr. Crosby came, grist-mills were operating within the present city limits. The first was a one-story structure built in Middlebury in 1807-8-9. It drew custom work thirty to forty miles around. In 1818, it was replaced by a three-story frame building and for ten years the new mill was the chief industry of Middlebury.

     The first grist-mill in the original Akron was the Old Stone mill, erected in 1832 at the foot of Mill st. How it came there is an interesting story in itself. About 1830, rivalry arose in Middlebury over the development of that settlement. Dr. Crosby set out to acquire the riparian rights to the Cuyahoga river, below, that is, after the water left, Middlebury. In order to avoid prema­ture revelation of his plan, he purchased whole farms. Some thought he was about to found a town at what is now "Old Forge."

     Dr. Crosby's plan was to divert the slowly flowing water from the natural river bed to a suitable point where the water fall would be more abrupt and powerful. By ac­quiring the rights appertaining to the river banks, he ac­quired the right to divert the water from the river bed in his lands. This he began to do.

     In 1831, Dr. Crosby began to dig the famous Cascade water race from Middlebury, around the hills, and through the woods. Prolonged blasting through solid rock was necessary at a point now overlooking the fair grounds. The race was completed quickly. It came down what is now Main st., from a point about opposite the terminal building to the Odd Fellows building, thence under the latter building to Mill st., down Mill st. to the Ohio canal and thence following the canal mostly by independent channels to the Cuyahoga river near the Swinehart Tire & Rubber plant. And there, it flows today, under streets and great buildings, carrying power to important enterprises, indeed, a life artery in a thriving city.

     The Old Stone mill was a five-story stone structure. Its location on the Ohio canal gave it economical trans­portation facilities. At once, it became the most important mill in all the country round. The town that sprang up around it was at first called Cascade and then named Akron. Part of the old mill walls stood until 1909, when a new Quaker Oats mill took its place.

     The success of the Old Stone mill soon led to the erec­tion of rival mills. A whiskey distillery north of West Market st., and about where the American Rubber & Tire Company plant is located was converted into a flouring mill in 1837, and called the Aetna mill. Two years later, the Center mill was erected on the canal at Cherry st.

     In 1840, the Cascade mill was built on the canal just south of the present North st. It was the best equipped mill in the town and even to this day remains of the great water wheel stand guard over the wrecked structure. About ten years later the City mill was erected at West filled from street to street. In addition, he had purchased the Old Cascade mill on the canal just south of North st., and refitted it with suitable machinery.

     He had not devoted his attention exclusively to plant enlargement. He had built up a large flour business. About 1876, he changed his process of manufacturing oats. Previous to that time, he had produced oatmeal, that is, oats cut into little cubes. About the Philadelphia Centen­nial year, he began the production of rolled oats, that is, oats partially cooked and then rolled under heavy pres­sure, basis of the method employed today.

     He tried to preserve his trade as best he could from rising competitors in Akron, Ravenna and elsewhere. He did this partly by adopting trade names for his products. In doing so, he favored Spanish names, calling his rolled oats "Rolled Avena," the latter word meaning oats, and his rolled wheat "Farina" (Spanish for wheat.)

     By 1886, Mr. Schumacher had become the foremost miller of the world. Over one night, the situation changed. During the night of March 6, 1886, Mr. Schu­macher's entire plant at Mill, Summit, Broadway and Quarry, was destroyed by fire, with the exception of the Empire Barley Mill. It was one of the disastrous fires in the city's history. It involved a loss to Mr. Schu­macher over and above insurance of $600,000, in addi­tion to the prospective loss of trade. Akron was threat­ened with the loss of a great industry.

     Rival breakfast food manufacturers had been bidding for several years for Mr. Schumacher's trade. As early as 1870, Robert Turner had started an oatmeal mill at Canal and Cherry sts., in a building now used as a ware­house. In 1880, this building and business was purchased by The Hower Company, probably the first corporation to engage in the oatmeal business. Those interested in the business were John H. Hower and his three sons, Harvey Y. Hower, M. Otis Hower and A. P. Hower. By the time of the fire, this corporation was doing a large and profitable business.

     Another rival had erected even a larger plant. This was the Akron Milling Company. In 1884, the Commins ­Allen interests, which had been successful in the flour trade, had joined with Henry Robinson, Charles Inman and Miner J. Allen in organizing the corporation known as the Akron Milling Company and erecting a large mill on Howard st., adjoining the Old Stone mill on Mill st. Other mills were operating in substantially the same field, at Ravenna the leading one perhaps being the Quaker mill, owned by H. P. Crowell and J. H. Andrews.

     The rivals saw in the Schumacher catastrophe an opportunity for business to flow to them.

     The Akron Milling company was just building up its trade. Negotiations opened immediately after the fire for a consolidation of this company, having a new mill striving for business with the Schumacher interest, having a business with no mill. Pressure was brought to bear from outside sources to force the Akron Milling com­pany to forego the anticipation of drawing to it a large part of the former Schumacher trade, and within a month of the fire, the Schumacher interests and the Akron Mill­ing interests were consolidated into a $2,000,000 corpora­tion known as The F. Schumacher Milling Company with the following officers : President, Ferdinand Schumacher ; vice president, Albert Allen ; vice president, Louis Schu­macher ; secretary, F. Adolph Schumacher ; treasurer, Hugo Schumacher.

     The Akron Milling company lacked railroad facilities. Its incoming and outgoing products had to be teamed. The new corporation remedied this situation. A plan was put into operation whereby grain was blown by air 1,600 feet through the city. Nothing of its kind existed in the world.

     Five pipes,—two, being ten inch pipes ; two, seven inch pipes ; and one, eight inch pipe,—were laid from el­evators, cleaning and drying rooms hastily reconstructed near the railroad tracks on the site of the burned Schu­macher buildings, under the city streets to the lower mills on Howard st. Under air pressure, grain began to pour into the lower mills from the Broadway buildings. Even to this day the pipes are a valuable asset in the operation of the mills.

     In June, 1891, The F. Schumacher Milling Company was consolidated with its principal rivals in the United States, including The Hower company, which had con­tinued to manufacture with increasing success, cereal goods at Canal and Cherry sts. Shortly thereafter the Hower plant was sold for other business uses.

     The new company was known as The American Cereal Company, with a capitalization of $3,400,000. Shortly after organization, its main office was removed from Akron to Chicago. Mr. Schumacher remained in control of the new corporation until 1899, receiving a salary as president of $5,000 a year. J. H. Andrews, who had formerly been one of the owners of the Quaker Mills at Ravenna, was placed in charge of the Akron mills, a po­sition he still holds.

     For a number of years, Ferdinand Schumacher, M. Otis Hower, Miner J. Allen and J. H. Andrews repre­sented Akron interests on the board of directors of The American Cereal Company. In 1901, the Quaker Oats company was organized as a holding company purely, and continued as such until 1907, when a reorganization took place and the Quaker Oats company became the operating corporation, superseding The American Cereal company. Thus was capitalized still further a valuable trade name, "Quaker Oats," a name first used by the Quaker Mill at Ravenna in the seventies. On the board of directors of the Quaker Oats Company were, for many years from Akron, Miner J. Allen and J. H. Andrews, a position Mr. Andrews still holds.

     During the years of corporate management, many new breakfast foods have been put on the market by the corporation, the most distinctive being "puffed" wheat and rice.

     During the corporate development of the Quaker Oats interests, another cereal mill made its appearance in Ak­ron. In 1883, John F. Seiberling organized the Seiber­ling Milling company and built in East Akron on a site now occupied by the most westerly of the Goodyear Rub­ber buildings, a six story brick mill, later devoted ex­clusively to oatmeal. "Mother's Oats" was the trade name of its products for a number of years. In 1901, this company became associated with The Great Western Cereal company. Cereals were manufactured there until about 1912, when the business of The Great Western Cereal Company passed into the hands of The Quaker Oats company, the Akron plant of the dissolved company being sold for other uses.

     Ninety years ago all the cereal manufacturing in Ak­ron was done at the foot of Mill st., by one concern. The mills have operated there ever since, and today all the cereal manufacturing in Akron is still done by one con­cern and on Mill st. Now, the miller, the Quaker Oats Company, is shipping a hundred car loads of manufac­tured products a day and turning out of the mills in Ak­ron a product valued at over $21,500,000 a year. And all, an industry started by a water race in 1831.