Old Moorhead Flour Mill

According to Mark Peihl, the old Moorhead Flour Mill was located on the River Bank, just South of where the Main Avenue Bridge is today.

In 1874, Henry Bruns built his own Flour Mill in Moorhead. The mill was successful, making top quality bread-flour. In 1878, the wheat production in the Red River Valley was at the maximum load of the Bruns Flour Mill, to store extra wheat, the area needed a grain elevator. In 1878 Bruns and Henry Finkle built the first steam powered grain elevator in the U.S. The elevator was controversial because the Northern Pacific Railway did not want competition between Moorhead and Fargo. The railroad only wanted one, large grain elevator to be built that could be used by both cities. However, Bruns and Finkle ignored this request and built their elevator anyway. The grain elevator changed owners many times over the years, in the 1890's and in 1903 the elevator and mill were bought by Dwight Baldwin. A fire destroyed the part of the elevator in 1910, and the rest of it in 1919.

Sources:

1. Cartwright, R.L.. "Bruns and Finkle Grain Elevator, Moorhead." MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnopedia.org/structure/bruns-and-finkle-grain-elevator-moorhead (accessed November 18, 2016).
2. Photo from the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, O.E. Flaten. http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/ref/collection/clc/id/4