The Atkinson ADM Mill at 3745 Hiawatha Ave. is still operating, and has recently been upgraded to make it more efficient. It is the last industrial flour mill still operating in Minneapolis. The mill was built during the 1910s, along with its sister mill, the Nokomis Mill (at 3501 Hiawatha).
Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM) closed the Nokomis mill as well as its flour mill in Salina, Kas.in 2019. ADM also closed its Chicago flour mill when a massive, state-of-the-art mill began operating in Mendota, Ill., 90 miles west of Chicago.
According to a Star Tribune article about the Atkinson Mill written in 2019 by Eric Roper:
The 24-hour operation produces more than 1 million pounds of flour a day, enough to fill 20 tanker trucks. Its floors are packed with rows of grinding and sifting machines, all transforming wheat kernels into flour for bakeries and food production plants. A tangle of pipes transports wheat up, down and across the facility, passing it through textured rollers — some still protected by wooden covers — and giant gyrating sifter boxes that separate flour from its bran shell. ... With 25 to 30 employees, the Atkinson Mill makes seven times as much flour as when it opened in 1915. ...
The Atkinson Mill was one of about two dozen in the city in 1915 when William Atkinson left the Washburn-Crosby Co. to open his own facility. Flour production was reaching its peak in Minneapolis. The area around St. Anthony Falls was growing increasingly crowded with mills, and Hiawatha Avenue and its important rail links had already been home to grain elevators for decades, according to Bob Frame, who is writing a book about the history of milling in Minnesota.
Minneapolis was the flour-milling capital of the country at the time. In his research, Frame found that railroad pricing changes, tariffs, shifting wheat production and the diminishing advantage of water power boosted the industry in Buffalo, N.Y. — which took away Minneapolis' title in 1930.
ADM traces its roots to linseed-oil businesses founded in Minneapolis at the turn of the century. It was still based in Minneapolis when the firm scooped up the family-owned Atkinson Milling Co. in 1962. It has since moved its headquarters to Chicago, and become one of the country's largest corporations.
