Pillsbury Mills

Pillsbury Mills and the C&IM rail yard in 1952 (Sangamon Valley Collection)

Pillsbury Mills and the C&IM rail yard in 1952 (Sangamon Valley Collection)

This entry was significantly expanded in 2021 and slightly updated in 2022.

Springfield got the official word that Pillsbury Mills wanted to build a major flour processing plant locally on May 8, 1929.

Springfield had been in competition with cities in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan along with other communities in Illinois. The city’s advantages, according to the announcement, included a good available workforce, a location in the middle of a productive grain belt, and excellent rail connections.

Once Springfield won that contest, officials focused on two possible building sites: the one at 15th and Philips that was eventually chosen, and one somewhere on the south side – the exact spot was never reported. The north end got the nod mainly because the mineral rights to that property had never been sold, meaning a coal mine could never be dug under the plant. Soil samples also showed the ground was more suitable than on the south side, and, to top off the deal, what are now the Illinois and Midland railroad yards existed already, right next door.

Drawing of the original Pillsbury complex, 1929 (Courtesy State Journal-Register)

Pillsbury’s 17-acre site was open ground at the time. While it’s not clear what the property had been used for all the time in the past, at some points in the 1800s, it was a “driving park,” a site for horse-and-buggy races. The Great National Horse Show and Equestrian Fair was held there in 1865.

Pillsbury officials said the new plant would cost $1 million to build and at first would employ 150 people Although Pillsbury imported about 40 workers from its Minneapolis headquarters – managers, chemists and head millers – most of the jobs went to central Illinois residents.

“At the outset the company will manufacture pancake flour, soft wheat flour and cake and bread flour,” the Illinois State Journal reported. “As the business grows, it is also proposed to erect a corn mill and to manufacture corn products and breakfast foods. … Seventy-five percent of the workers at the new plant will be from the city of Springfield, providing a livelihood for approximately three hundred families.”

Pillsbury employees filling sacks of Pillsbury’s Best flour, 1930s (Sangamon Valley Collection)

Counting equipment and other addons, the plant ended up costing $1.25 million, the equivalent of about $18 million in 2021. Pillsbury sent its top officials, including two members of the Pillsbury family, to Springfield for the plant’s grand opening on May 3, 1930.

Pillsbury started increasing the mill’s capacity almost as soon as it went into operation. The company added a 2-million-bushel wheat storage elevator in 1934 and the following year added a fifth floor to the specialty building.

When the first addition was completed, the plant was using 11 million bushels of wheat every year. In 1936, the plant’s main product was Pillsbury’s Best flour. But it also manufactured Sno-Sheen cake flour, wheat cereal, Farina Health Bran, wheat bran, Daisy feed, and flours to make pancakes, buckwheat pancakes and doughnuts. Yellow and white corn meal and hominy grits were produced elsewhere but packaged here in Springfield.

The Springfield plant underwent three major expansions – in 1937 and in the late 1940s and late 1950s.

The 1937 project, which included a nine-story warehouse and grinding/sifting building, doubled Pillsbury’s grain storage capacity. The Journal reported:

Employees working on flour sifters, 1937 (Courtesy State Journal-Register)

The new warehouse has a capacity of 40,000 barrels of flour, making the plant’s total capacity 75,000 barrels. Twelve sifters will sift the flour. Each sifter is composed of 12 boxes, and each box contains 28 sleeves. The flour is sifted through silk cloth, of which there are 1,344 pieces.

The plant, with the new addition, can load 109 railroad cars simultaneously and has six unloading pits for wheat and can unload 60 cars a day.

With the addition of 100 men, the plant will now employ 420 men steadily, with 100 in reserve for the busy season.

During World War II, most of Pillsbury’s output went to the military, and expansion plans for Springfield were put on hold. As soon as the war was over, however, the company announced its next big project. This was the period when Pillsbury employment grew fastest, from about 500 workers shortly before the war up to 1,100 in 1950. Women also started to become more prominent among Pillsbury’s workforce, partly, no doubt, because so many men had gone to war.

Packaging crew includes one woman, 1945 (Courtesy SJ-R)

Governor Adlai Stevenson was the featured speaker when Pillsbury held a grand opening for the 1949 project. The biggest part of that expansion involved construction of what was called the premix plant, but the company also introduced more automation and electronic controls.

“Flour was transferred pneumatically from the mills to the plant and stored in bins,” the State Journal-Register’s John Reynolds reported in 2011. “Sugar was brought in on special railroad cars, then carried pneumatically to its own storage bins, where it was held until needed.”

Partly because of all that automation, the expansion itself increased local employment by only about 30 workers.

The 1949 addition allowed Pillsbury Springfield to make premix products not for homemakers, but for bakeries, restaurants and institutions. Products Pillsbury manufactured in the new facility included mixes for doughnuts, sweet dough, cake bases, doughnut coating sugar, and institutional type mixes. This project also included new administrative offices and a front-door reception area.

The third big expansion in Springfield broke ground in 1958 and opened in 1960. The most obvious addition this time was a 10-story storage warehouse, but Pillsbury also modernized its milling facilities and further updated equipment for flour handling and packaging. Even before this round of construction, the Springfield plant was Pillsbury’s biggest, and the 1958 project made it bigger yet.

A total of 1,215 people worked at Pillsbury locally as of 1958. (According to some, total employment reached as high as 1,800 earlier in the 1950s.)

Pillsbury continued to invest in the Springfield plant into the 1960s. But some of that money went into automated equipment, which again cut the need for workers.

Ash analyst Ann Bordenkircher works under observation from Pillsbury officials, including plant manager R.J. Kerber, far  left, and touring bakery executives from England, 1951 (SJ-R)

In announcing the new construction in 1958, Pillsbury president Paul Gerot declined to estimate how many people the plant would employ in the future. What he did say was that automation would reduce the number of “inefficient” jobs, but those might be offset by the creation of new jobs. The fact is, however, that three years later, Pillsbury’s local workforce had dropped about five percent. It was the start of a slow decline that got a lot faster later in the ‘60s.

When Pillsbury was operating, though, it was a good place to work. Aside from good wages and stable jobs, Pillsbury employees – known informally as “doughboys”– formed baseball, softball and bowling teams. Golf leagues also were very active.

It wasn’t always perfect, of course. Pillsbury workers, represented by American Federation of Grain Millers Local 24, went out on strike at least three times between 1950 and 1980. But employees had other memories too.

When Pillsbury celebrated its 50th anniversary in Springfield in 1979, State Journal-Register reporter Charlyn Fargo talked to Helen McCuen, who was then the company’s longest-serving local employee. She had gone to work for Pillsbury in 1933, starting out at 25 cents an hour.

Helen McCuen, 1979 (SJ-R)

“It was a lot harder back then,” McCuen said. “My hands used to be swollen at the end of each day from lifting and using them constantly. Now, it’s all automation. You still work hard, but you’re using different muscles.

“But I’ve liked all my jobs. It’s all so different now. Men used to have to lift the five and 10 pound sacks and use a hand cart on the 100 pound bags. Everything is palletized now, straight to the box car or truck.”

McCuen told Fargo women weren’t promoted at Pillsbury when she started there. She did get a pay raise during World War II, but that was because she was offered a sweeping job instead of working on the production line. Sweeping paid 3 or 4 cents an hour more than she was making, so she took it. “You didn’t worry about such things as promotions,” McCuen said. “You were darn glad to get a job.”

Men and women had different jobs in the plant anyway, McCuen said. “Men’s hands weren’t as nimble. They didn’t want our jobs. We all worked together.”

Lewis Morelock, a former president of Local 24, told an online presentation sponsored by Lincoln Library in February 2021 that, when he started at Pillsbury in the early 1970s, there were certain jobs women simply weren’t allowed to do. The company changed that prohibition a few years later, he said.

The area around Pillsbury had its own grocery store, an ice cream shop, a gas station, a barbershop, and numerous corner taverns, where third-shift employees could stop at the end of their workday, which was the first thing in the morning.

And, of course, there was The Mill restaurant and nightclub at 906 N. 15th St. It opened in 1933, a couple of years after Pillsbury was built, in what had been a grocery store operated by Herman and Louis Cohen. The Mill lasted almost 40 years.

Jeff Naudain, a grinder in the milling department, 1979 (SJ-R)

In a 2005 interview with The State Journal-Register, Pillsbury Mills Neighborhood Association president John Keller remembered what it was like when the plant operated at the end of his street.

“The neighborhood always smelled like a fresh-baked loaf of bread or doughnuts,” he said. Sometimes Keller would fall asleep on his front porch listening to a machine wrap pallets with plastic. He grew so accustomed to the sound that “it was just like going to bed with your TV on.”

Rex Bangert, who worked at Pillsbury and lived nearby as a child, had a similar memory. Commenting during the 2021 library presentation, Bangert said he got used to the sound of trains moving in and out of Pillsbury and the nearby yards. “When we moved, I had trouble falling asleep, it was so quiet,” he said.

Bangert and another commenter at the presentation, Tim House, mentioned another benefit enjoyed by the families of Pillsbury workers: test-kitchen baked goods. “My father worked there,” House said. “We ate donuts for breakfast every day.”

Cutbacks in Springfield started in earnest in 1964, when Pillsbury closed one of its three local mills. About 100 people lost their jobs that time around. Then, in 1969, the company cancelled all planned spending on improvements and new machinery, saying the Springfield plant had had “high operating costs for the past several years.”

John Davsko, a PIllsbury manager, in control room, 1979 (SJ-R via SVC)

As late as 1979, however, the Springfield operation was the largest in Pillsbury’s $3 billion empire and had 550 employees. The way it worked had changed greatly over the years, according to the SJ-R’s 50th anniversary story:

There are many restrictions at the plant. Uniforms are required, but they are never to be worn anywhere outside the plant. They can’t even be taken home to launder. No jewelry of any kind can be worn, with the exception of a single wedding band. Visitors are cloaked in white lab coats, complete with hat or hair net, depending on length of hair. Employees with beards are required to cover them.

Human contact is restricted to the buttons on the computer. The exact amounts of flour, sugar, hot shortening, salt, milk and egg, soda and leavening are programmed into the computer for each product.

“’We can do 278 totally different products through this computer without ever touching the product,” John Davsko, a Pillsbury manager, told the newspaper.

Pillsbury products manufactured in Springfield, 1989 (SVC)

In 1989, however, a British conglomerate, Grand Metropolitan PLC, bought the entire Pillsbury company. The new owners moved grocery product lines out of Springfield to Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1990, and then in 1991 sold the facility to Cargill Inc. The two moves cut the already shrinking Springfield workforce in half, to fewer than 200 people. “It was pretty depressing at Cargill,” Morelock remembered.

When Cargill closed the plant for good in 2001, only about 45 people still worked there.

Ley Properties Management purchased the former Pillsbury complex — 20 buildings and warehouses and 30 grain silos — from Cargill in 2008 and began a salvage operation. The site was sold again six years later to a partnership, P Mills LLC, owned by Joseph Chernis III and his son, Joseph IV, and Kenneth Crain of Sherman.

P Mills began demolition, but the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency accused the partners of improper asbestos removal. Joseph Chernis IV eventually spent two years in federal prison on charges connected to the removal.

Update: The plant was still derelict in early 2022, when P Mills turned the 18-acre site over to a new nonprofit owner, a group named Moving Pillsbury Forward. Spokesman Chris Richmond, the son of a former Pillsbury employee, said Moving Pillsbury Forward  intended to secure the site from vandals and scavengers and seek redevelopment grants. The ultimate goal was to convert the abandoned plant into a home for light industry, he said.

“We know once we get this property dealt with and removed, it gives the rest of the neighborhood a chance to actually buoy up and shine at a brighter level than it has,”Richmond said in announcing the property transfer.

Richmond estimated in October 2021 it would take $12 million and about five years to clear the site for redevelopment.

‘Doughboy’ origin 

Pillsbury site, early 2021 (Sangamon County Historical Society)

One lasting piece of the Pillsbury image originated with a Springfield employee, according to Morelock, a 20-year employee who served for a while as president of Local 24.

“Did you know that the original Pillsbury Doughboy shown in their commercials was first introduced in a suggestion box by a member of the union there at the Springfield plant?” Morelock wrote in an email to SangamonLink. “It took off and became the national symbol for the brand.”

Pillsbury claims the Doughboy idea came from its advertising agency in 1965. For more on this controversy, see SangamonLink’s entry on Pillsbury ‘Doughboy’ origin debate. Also see Chris Richmond’s comment below.

Hat tips: To former Pillsbury employees Rex Bangert, Tim House and especially Lew Morelock for their participation in Lincoln Library’s presentation on Pillsbury in February 2021. Their comments added greatly to this entry.

See also: The Pillsbury Project continues to add to Pillsbury’s history in Springfield. Some of its findings are included in the comments below.

The cleanup: See a YouTube video here of a small part of the Pillsbury cleanup project. (Property of Doug Wolfe, Andy Barker & WAND TV News/NBC, posted by the Pillsbury Project)

More information and photos: Springfield Business: A Pictorial History, Edward Russo, Melinda Garvert and Curtis Mann, 1998. The 2021 Lincoln Library presentation was recorded and is or will be available through the library.

Original content copyright Sangamon County Historical Society. You are free to republish this content as long as credit is given to the Society. Learn how to support the Society. 

 

 

 

This entry was posted in Buildings, Business, Industry and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

32 Responses to Pillsbury Mills

  1. Tom Jagiela says:

    Is there anyone that knows what happened to the lobby mural in the Springfield Pillsbury Plant. I worked there in the 80’s. I would like to see it again.
    Thanks.
    Tom

    • editor says:

      Tom: I’ll see if I can find out anything. Meanwhile, if another reader knows about the fate of the mural, please contact me at mkienzler@msn.com. Thanks.

      Mike Kienzler (editor)

    • Jess says:

      Years ago I thrifted a Pillsbury lab coat embroidered with the name “Anne” and I’m on a search to find out about the owner. Does anyone know anything about an “Anne” who work at Pillsbury? Finally toured the plant yesterday and it was a great tour. Highly recommend!

  2. Tom Jagiela says:

    Thanks for the reply. It would be a shame if it was destroyed. It was probably 40 feet long and 15 feet wide. It was grain to flour depiction.
    Tom

  3. zach roberts says:

    hey tom if im correct I was there and took a walk around the whole building when the brought the metal part of the main building down Im pretty sure it was destroyed.

  4. editor says:

    Zach: Thanks for the note. You may be right, but when I was in there a couple months ago, looking for the mural, the place where it had hung was still in one piece. It looked to me like the mural had been removed. But still, if so, nobody knows where it went.

  5. Herb wilkinson says:

    Tom, Steve Cartwright stayed on with Cargil, he told me a crew came and took it back to Minneapolis. The place has been gutted by ley metals and now they have been stopped by the EPA for asbestos violations. Its shame a place once so alive now waiting for the wrecking ball.
    Herb Wilkinson

    • editor says:

      Herb: Thanks for the update on the mural. (For the record, Ley Metals is no longer involved with Pillsbury salvage. The last contractor, whose work indeed was stopped because of the asbestos content of the buildings, was Midwest Demolition of Springfield.)

      Thanks for reading.

  6. Michael Hoekstr says:

    I am trying to figure out a friends birthfather. He was put up for adoption around 1952 and was told his birthdad worked at Pillsbury in Springfield, his birth mother also worked there. I believe his birth dad’s last name may have been Bird or Vogel or Fogle? My friend was born around 1952 so his dad would have worked there then and apparently was a supervisor of some sort.

    • editor says:

      Sir: If he hasn’t done so already, your friend can get a copy of his original birth certificate. There’s information here on that process.

      Otherwise, if you’re in the Springfield area or can come here, your best approach might be to look for the names you mention in city directories from the early 1950s. The directories give occupations for most of those listed. Directories are available in the Sangamon Valley Collection at Lincoln Library, Springfield’s municipal library.

      Thanks for reading.

  7. Michael U says:

    My dad worked there his whole life. He recently told me about a sub basement beneath the main mill, not the ones beneath the silos. But another one beneath where they removed the asbestos. He said no-one ever really went down there I am very curious as to what purpose they served. Sorry this is not a reply but would like to know why they are there..

  8. Jill e says:

    How to find out who worked there I think my grandma did but am not sure.

    • editor says:

      Jill: Your grandmother’s obituary might have mentioned where she worked. Springfield city directories also might say. Call or email the Sangamon Valley Collection at Lincoln Library, the Springfield public library. They can check those sources for you. Good luck.

  9. Chuck Moe says:

    Does anyone know the name of the Plant manager who I believe came from Texas? We purchased the house he built at 3108 Wildcat Point in Panther Creek ? We are trying to locate the name of the builder that constructed that house. Thank You

  10. Lew Morelock says:

    Russ Lucas, Carl Tulley, Chuck Brashears were all plant managers at Pillsbury during their final years. The latest news on the mural is that nether Cargill or Pillsbury has that mural. There is some belief that Bendena Enrietta, Opel Hullman, or Anne Eddington may have some further insight on where it went. I worked there for over 20 years through their shutdown.

  11. Lew Morelock says:

    Robert Hough was the plant manager from Cargill. When Cargill closed he went to ADM in Decatur. I do not know if he is still in Illinois.

  12. Roger L Leach says:

    Opal Hullman, along with her husband Herman, passed away a few years ago. She was my aunt, my dad’s sister. Herman worked for Allis Chalmers/Fiat for most of his adult life as did Aunt Opal for Pillsbury. Those two companies affected a lot of lives in Springfield IL during their day.

  13. Lew Mortlick says:

    Are you any relation to Lum Leach or Mike Leach? Did Opal have access to the mural that was in the front lobby of the Pillsbury building?

  14. Lew Morelock says:

    The name is Lew Morelock. Sorry for the confusion and error.

  15. Roger L Leach says:

    Lum Leach, as far as I know, was not a relative. I’ve heard the name and I believe my Dad might have known him, but I don’t. I believe I have a second cousin by the name of Mike Leach. If I am correct, Mike’s dad was Elmer Leach Jr., my cousin. Elmer Jr. and my dad were approximately the same age. Elmer Sr. was the oldest of Lilburn and Lottie Leach’s children and my dad, Clarence R. was next to the youngest and one of ten children. Though most are somewhat still in the Springfield/Rochester/Edinburg area, are scattered about.

  16. Roger L Leach says:

    Lew,
    I apologize for not answering the second part of your inquire, I really don’t know what Aunt Opal’s access might have been in regards to the mural. The story I was told was that she was the secretary to one of the top managers or the top manager when she retired. It was also my understanding that she started out as the switch board operator, presumably right out of high school(?) and worked her way up to that position.

  17. I recently found a control panel in the grocery mix plant with a very early Pillsbury Doughboy image. The doughboy has his right arm flexed as a symbol of strength. It leads me to believe that Lew Morelock’s assertion that the Pillsbury Doughboy came from a Springfield employee suggestion has merit. Pillsbury’s official story is that the Poppin’ Fresh advertising mascot, commonly known as the Pillsbury Doughboy, was created in 1965 maybe correct but, the doughboy imagery at the Springfield Pillsbury plant is likely to pre-date 1965. I believe, as Morelock has indicated, that the doughboy was likely born at the Springfield Pillsbury facility and crafted into what would become an advertising icon for Pillsbury in 1965.

  18. Pingback: Moving Pillsbury Forward thanks its 2022 volunteers - 24Talker

  19. Pingback: Moving Pillsbury Forward thanks its 2022 volunteers - NewsFinale

  20. editor says:

    The history of Pillsbury in Springfield continues to expand, thanks to J. Chris Richmond and the Pillsbury Reunion Project. Here is an August 2023 description of the annual “Wheat Rush,” taken from the memories of former employees and neighborhood residents:

    “The Wheat Rush at the Springfield Pillsbury plant was a big deal. Beginning in early July and lasting for several weeks, grain trucks would come from miles around to deliver wheat to the plant. The plant held more than 3 million bushels when filled to full capacity. Each of the 160 silos held 18,000 bushels. The 108 spaces between the silos held another 1,500 bushels each.

    “Grain trucks would line up along 15th Street for several blocks. Sometimes, the line of trucks would stretch as far south as Clearlake Avenue. Each truck would get tested, weighed, and dumped on the north side of the plant. A typical day during the Wheat Rush would see 700-1000 grain trucks unloaded.

    The Pillsbury Neighborhood looked forward to the Wheat Rush. Children in the area would set up lemonade stands. Sandwiches and snacks were commonly sold to the farmers and truck drivers along with lemonade. The Wheat Rush was an annual summertime activity that everyone looked forward to being a part of.”

  21. Mike Newland says:

    Does anyone know about the Springfield Pillsbury plant’s power plant.

    How many boilers and generators were used?
    How much electrical power was produced in capacity in megawatts ?

    Are there any photos of the inside of the power plant?

    Any engineering information about the power plant ? Thank You. Mike Newland

Leave a Reply to J Chris Richmond Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *