CREATIVE HISTORY : A CLOSER LOOK : LOCAL INDUSTRIES : BOULDER CITY FLOUR MILLS

BOULDER CITY FLOUR MILLS

Conducting research for business histories can be difficult work, especially for local companies that have not existed for nearly a century. Over the decades official company records move or disappear, which can make available public documentation about a company scarce or non-existent. The brief histories of Boulder City Brewery and Sternberg Flour Mills are examples of two significant businesses that operated in into the early twentieth century but have very little documentation, or even buildings remaining. The following company history demonstrates how even with a small collection of sources you can develop a sense of how the company operated and contributed to the community.

In 1872 the Sternberg brothers, both farmers and millers, moved to Boulder with a vision of building a flour mill. DeKalb Sternberg and his family had been operating their own 340-acre farm north of Denver for two years before his brother Jay arrived from Iowa. Jay was already familiar with the area after mining during the initial 1859 Gold Rush. Out of the towns the brothers knew in Colorado, the small mining supply town of Boulder offered the best potential for growth. They purchased six acres on the south side of Boulder Creek about one mile southeast of town near what became 24th and University Streets.

Working quickly, the brothers completed their 30- by 53-foot, three-story, wooden mill in late August 1873, and named their venture the Boulder City Flouring Mills. Installation of three sets of millstones created a planned production capacity of ten tons of flour, or two hundred sacks every twenty-four hours. This optimistic capacity fell short for the first two years since they only averaged seventy-five sacks a day, and it would take several more years until they would get close to reaching the full two hundred sacks per day.

Within the first year the mill gained an excellent reputation for all three grades of flour. Some believing the mill’s lowest grade product was better than any of the high-grade flour shipped from the eastern states. During 1875 and 1876 the brothers made several improvements. The first addition was the installation of a forty-horse-power steam engine. Prior to steam power, they could not work during the winter because the supply of water became problematic when Boulder Creek froze. Now they had the capability to work all year round relying on waterpower in summer when the creek was high. In addition to the steam engine, they purchased an extra set of millstones to increase their production capacity.

By 1878 the flour mill consistently producing close to 180 sacks per day and the brothers added a fifth set of stones to grind corn and oats. Their products were shipped to towns and major markets across the state. Even Cheyenne, Wyoming (almost 100 miles away) enjoyed Sternberg’s “Premium” and “Patent” flours. As the company grew, their supply base expanded benefiting the regional economy. In addition to buying their wheat in Colorado, the company began purchasing corn from farms in Kansas, and oats in Nebraska.

Just as the company began gaining wider success, DeKalb stepped down from his position and sold all his interests in the mill in 1879. It is not known why he resigned, but he and his family remained in the area buying 160 acres about a mile and a half east of Boulder near Valmont to develop a farm and grow fruit. It might have been during this ownership change that Jay switched the company name to Sternberg Flouring Mill.

On his own, Jay Sternberg kept the company competitive when he invented a crucial piece of machinery that set his mill apart from others in the state. Around 1880 he developed what he called the Centennial Separator. Used during the final step of the cleaning process and just prior to milling, the Separator removed the last bits of excess dirt, gravel and other small objects from the raw wheat. Removing the potentially damaging gravel saved time and money by keeping the grinding stones and rollers operational, and it created a cleaner and superior tasting product. Many other mills within Colorado offered large sums of money for the use of Sternberg’s patented machinery, but he refused. By only selling the Centennial Separator to mills in states such as Utah and California, he secured his place in the Colorado market through tough competition.

On a late March evening in 1889, burglars entering the mill’s engine room broke into the office. Even though the engine room fires had been put out to clean the boilers, it was believed some stray embers set the room ablaze around 8:30 p.m. and quickly spread through the mill. The fire department arrived promptly on the scene, but the structure was just beyond the reach of their equipment. This forced a hook and ladder company to use buckets to battle the flames. The fire could be seen from all over town, and it was said that the color of the fire reflected in the Boulder courthouse’s windows nearly a mile away. Even the people in Marshall, the coal-mining town five miles south, “were out in the streets, wondering what was going on in Boulder.”

Within two hours, the $60,000, four-story wooden mill, its supplies, stock, and equipment burned to the ground. Even some new machinery that had not yet been installed lay in the embers. Only a few tools were salvaged from the smoldering wreckage, but luckily the company’s account books, though charred, survived inside the partially melted company safe.

Two days later, head miller Charles Rowland reflected on the disaster to a Boulder County Herald reporter: “I stand upon the ruins of the walls yesterday and see what was left of the mill and of every piece of machinery which I had known for almost seven years, knowing just where it had stood and what work it had done. It was all I could do to keep the tears back, so attached had I become to everything connected with the mill.”

This fire not only affected the mill owner and employees, but the entire community, because the Sternberg Flour Company was one of the most important industries in Boulder. Approximately $120 in weekly wages was lost, farmers lost a daily wheat buyer, and town businesses lost the consumer dollars that went back into the local economy. Boulder’s business community quickly realized the importance of constructing a new mill as soon as possible.

Despite financial setbacks and the slow process of insurance adjustors, a man by the name of S.A. Giffin took matters into his own hands and motivated the community to help out. So that the flour mill could rebuild quickly, Griffin encouraged owners of property around 11th and Front (Walnut) Streets to donate land to the mill. The close proximity to the freight depot made he location ideal. Three weeks after the fire the new Sternberg Milling and Elevator Company organized, and only six months later the new and improved mill was up and running, ready for a grand opening.

Jay Sternberg owned the Milling and Elevator Company for nearly one more decade before he retired. In 1898 he stepped down and the company was renamed the Boulder Milling and Elevator Company. Shortly thereafter Jay moved with his family to southern California where he died in July 1912. DeKalb remained in Valmont until his death only two months before his brother in May 1912. The mill continued operation until it went bankrupt in 1923. The Boulder Valley Mill Elevator and Cereal Company attempted to resurrect the property, but only stayed in business for a short time. The buildings stood vacant for several years until they too succumbed to fire in 1931. Nothing remains of the buildings today.

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