Okeene Flour Mill

Okeene Mill, in its three-quarter-century existence, is both an anachronism and an industrial success story. In each case, curiously enough, it is strongly representative of a basic change in the American scene, particularly on the Great Plains.

It is an anachronism in that it is one of the last small-town flour mills to be found anywhere. (Okeene's 1970 population: 1,421.) In the first third of the 20th century almost every town of any size in strong wheat-growing states like Oklahoma and Kansas boasted its own mill. Each of these usually small "flouring mills" manufactured, and vigorously promoted in its immediate area, one or more of its own brand-name flours ... mostly for the domestic, or home-baking, trade. At the time of statehood (1907) Oklahoma had some 77 flour mills, (Curiously, it also has 77 counties.) As late as 1940 the state had 32 mills.

But eating habits were beginning to change. Bread and pastry consumption was falling as meat eating increased, and flour sales plummeted. Meanwhile improved milling methods and transportation facilities, along with other factors, was revolutionizing the milling industry itself (see below. Small-town mills began to fade like a rose in a hot August sun. Today Okeene Mill is one of but four still operating in Oklahoma, And much of its production goes in bulk to commercial bakeries throughout the Southwest.

That Okeene mill has continued, not only to exist, but to flourish as well, makes it an industrial success story. It is an anachronism because it remains in the small town in which it was founded - in 1901. But it has survived only because it has also been innovative in its approach to flour milling, has contributed a number of "firsts" to the milling industry in the southwest ... in short, because it has grown up with the industry itself.

The mill began as a 200 cwts, (100 barrels) operation. Today its capacity is 3,100 cwts. (1,560 barrels) of flour. And its work force has increased from five to thirty employees. Size alone, however, fails to tell the story, for the mill is still relatively small. As agriculture has undergone almost revolutionary changes since World War I, so has the milling industry. In 1926, for example, Okeene Mill was turning out mainly family flour ... in 12, 24, and 48-pound sacks for sale, as indicated above, through nearby retail outlets, Transportation was almost entirely by rail.
In the mid-1930s Okeene Mill claimed a first by using trucks to make state-wide deliveries. At one time it had a fleet of 16 trucks. The mill was among the first to package its products in attractive print materials that allowed frugal housewives to convert the empty sacks to children's clothes, draperies, and other household uses, Okeene Mill was also a leader in the promotional field. Two of its most successful: a "Biscuit Day" for merchants and, the best known by far, the "Okeene Mill Pancake Supper" that helped raise funds for civic, church, and school organizations throughout Western Oklahoma, Today prints and pancakes alike have disappeared as the mill has turned to commercial bakery flour delivered in bulk by huge rail and motorized hoppers.

Okeene Mill's innovative approach to the milling industry also extended into the flour making process itself. Traditionally, grain and mill products were moved by a system of conveyor belts and cups. These were phased out at Okeene in the late 1950s in favor of a pneumatic system, one of the first to be installed in the southwest. Today it serves all phases of production, to the unloading of grain from trucks and rail cars, to the milling itself, to the loading of bulk flour back onto trucks and rail hoppers for transporting to purchasers.

Okeene Mill, then, is being nominated because its existence today as a small town anachronism was made possible by its successful attempt over the years to keep pace with the changing times. In so doing it is strikingly representative of the evolutionary development of the milling industry in the 20th century in all phases of its operation ... production, transportation, and promotion.