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This was published in a newspaper. I don’t know which one. I just have the article. It is about my Uncle Carroll Martin. The article says: Carroll Martin is one of the few men in Weiser who can tell you how to make flour. He’s spent 43 years in the mill business. He was honored on his retirement Saturday noon by fellow employees at Weiser Feed and Storage.
While in school Carroll had spent a couple of summers working for what was then the Colorado Milling and Elevator Company on West Commercial. He recalls that J.K. Mullins, owner of Colorado Milling and Elevator Company, and Frank Gwilliams, manager, came to Weiser High School and asked Superintendent Akimbo if there was a student who would be interested in going to school to study milling. The superintendent recommended him.
“ I don’t even know what the special school cost,” said Martin. They sent me to Minneapolis, Minnesota to the Dunwoody Milling School. The course took two years, with the last several months involving correspondence courses.
Coming back to the plant on West Commercial, he became an oiler, for .58 cents an hour. “The wages sure beat the devil out of the .50 cents a day I’d been getting in the hay fields during the summer,” said Martin.
He worked his way into the second miller’s spot and superintendent, a job he kept for 27 years, until the mill shut down.
The brand name of the flour produced here was “Picket.” It was considered a “family” flour. It was made from Turkey Red wheat, mostly shipped in from Montana. Some was purchased locally but there wasn’t enough available to keep the mill supplied. When the country went to war they started making white flour for the government. Again Montana and her rolling wheat fields came to the rescue.
During a 24-hour period they could mill the equivalent of one thousand 100-pounds sacks. Government flour, which generally went overseas as shipped in 140 lb. “Jutes,” burlap bags with an inner lining. They were stacked, by hand, to the ceiling in railway cars.
The mill also put out two by-products, one of which ended up as Kellogg Bran Flakes. After the starchy material was extracted from a kernel of grain the rest of it went into bran flakes. They also produced mill run feed for animals.
There were 62 persons employed at the mill, including office, staff, lab personnel and truck drivers. In some areas they were running three shifts.
After the war they began producing cookie flour for such companies as Pillsbury and Nabisco. To make sure that the cookies were the right size to fit into the boxes, some would be baked every hour in the lab, to make sure the flour was maintaining quality.
When the mill shut down, partly due the fact that they couldn’t get grain, and freight rates were high, Carroll transferred to Ranchway Feeds in Ontario, which was the feed division of Colorado Milling and Elevator Company. After the business was sold to Western Farmers, Carroll spent two years there. When they asked him to carry a picket sign he packed up and came back to Weiser. In 1965 the old flour mill had been purchased by a group Weiser businessmen and ranchers and became Weiser Feed and Storage. Carroll was back where he started in August 1937.
Snake River F&G, The Andersons partner up in Weiser
The Scoular grain elevators on Commercial Street now belong to Snake River Feed and Grain owners Rylie Wendt and Matt Storlie.
Photo by Philip A. Janquart
Snake River Feed & Grain and The Andersons have teamed up to provide farmers a local option for selling grain in Weiser.
Pictured, from left, Steven Brant, Matt Storlie, Rylie Wendt, Mike Vermeer, Greg Gaumer, and Austin Hanny. Storlie and Wendt are the owners of Snake River F&G.
Anyone living in Weiser is familiar with the towering, concrete grain elevators at 401 W. Commercial Street.
They were previously owned by the Scoular Company, which bought the site in 2012. It handled, stored, and merchandised grains while operating a seed cleaning business.
When Scoular shut down the operation a couple years ago, it left local farmers in a bit of a bind. The 700,000-bushel grain facility was the only local operation where area growers could take their corn and wheat. They were forced to begin doing business outside the area, leading to logistical solutions that resulted in more money and time.
But all of that is about to change.
A couple weeks ago, Snake River Feed & Grain and The Andersons announced a partnership that will once again provide a local option for area farmers during harvest.
“Previously, we haven’t had a presence in Weiser,” said The Andersons Greenleaf terminal Senior Merchant/Supervisor, Mike Vermeer. “We feel there is enough grain to operate a business that will provide major benefits to the community and improve service and prices for local producers. We have signed a long-term handling agreement with Snake River Feed & Grain, and we are committed to building a lasting presence here.”
He added, “The Andersons will pay Snake River to handle and store grain, and all grain contracting will be done directly with The Andersons out of the Greenleaf, Idaho office.”
Vermeer noted that the Weiser facility will not require much work to be fully operational and will be accepting grain for the 2023 harvest.
“Hopefully we get some bushels this year, but we are starting late in the season,” he said. “We know that as we become more established, the volumes we handle through Weiser will increase.”
Founded by Harold Anderson in 1947, the company, headquartered in Maumee, Ohio, owns more than 50 grain terminals in 11 states, as well as Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada, according to the company’s website.
The Andersons have grain elevators in Bliss, Buhl, American Falls, Glenns Ferry, Hansen, Burley, Idaho Falls, Hamer, Malta, and Greenleaf, Idaho.
The company merchandises corn, soybean meal, wheat, oats, and other commodities, with most of its Idaho trade in wheat and corn.
It is unclear when Scoular departed Weiser, but it is believed to have been sometime in 2021. The bins were left empty, and the site remained inactive until Rylie Wendt and Matt Storlie expressed interest in purchasing the facility.
The business partners own Snake River Feed & Grain in Payette, Idaho. Wendt purchased SRF&G from Dell Christian in 2018, with Storlie later buying into it.
Described by Wendt as a “mom and pop” operation, the business, located at 110 N. Seventh St. in Payette, Idaho, specializes in small animal feed, offering a wide range of bagged products and brands, including Purina, Red Flannel dog food, and County Acre cat food.
The business has been thriving, growing to the point where it was necessary to expand. The biggest obstacle has been finding space to store the grains used to mix custom products.
“I don’t have much storage, so I’ve been processing load to load,” Wendt said. “I would get a semi load, have them drop it into my little bins, and process it. Then I’d have to turn around and get another load.”
Wendt previously worked at Scoular and was familiar with the Weiser facility, which became a practical solution to SRF&G’s storage problems.
The new location will allow Wendt and Storlie to expand, opening a feed retail store at the Weiser facility and turning Payette into a retail-only store.
All feed milling will be done in Weiser, offering conventional and non-GMO products, and a separate ionophore feed mill facility.
It will produce 50-pound bags, totes, and grain in bulk. Wendt and Storlie are certified Purina Mills wholesalers, which helps them offer specialty feeds they can’t make themselves, such as dog, cat, rabbit, rat, and more.
The only problem is that the facility is large, and the company needed a partner to help fill all the grain bins.
“With us, we can get along with one, or one and a half of the 20,000-bushel bins,” Wendt explained. “When we start doing more steer feed, we will probably expand into another bin, or bin and a half, so three.”
There are a total of 20 bins of varying capacities. With all the extra space, the business partners ultimately approached Vermeer at The Andersons and the deal was done relatively quickly.
Now, SRF&G can mix and sell its products locally, in large part servicing local 4-H and FFA members. Meanwhile, The Andersons can tap into a market with a convenient local delivery point. The deal is mutually beneficial and is anticipated to be a win for farmers and those looking for a local source of animal feed and other products.
“We hope to be in this for the long haul,” Vermeer said. “We’ve been trying to break into that market for several years. We will provide local delivery and more pricing options for the farmer. We hope that a local delivery point coupled with a high level of local customer service will make producers choose to work with The Andersons.”
Vermeer added, “I’m excited; I am ready to provide extraordinary service to the agricultural community.”
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