Agricultural Products—Iowa Farmers Adapt to Changing Times
Churning room in the Perry Milk Products Company
Manual cradle to harvest grain
Flater's meat shop
Inspecting ears of hybrid seed corn
Hybrid seed plant
contour farming
Harvesting Oats
Farmers Inspecting Crops
Iowa's Meatpacking Industry
Dairy Farming Booms in Iowa
Grain Milling Industry
Early Mills
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Early Mills
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Time Frame: 1830's
Grist mills ground wheat, oats, barley and corn into flour and meal. Some mills were "self serve." The mills were dependent on rivers for power.
©1979
Iowa Public Television
Return to Agricultural Products—Iowa Farmers Adapt to Changing Times
Transcript
Some of the earliest mills depended on horses, not water, for their power. In sparsely populated areas—where a full-time miller was unnecessary—the mills were self-service. A farmer had to drive his wagonload of grain 10-20 miles to the nearest mill, use his own horses to power it, do his own grinding and leave his toll in the toll-box. He might have worked up a sweat in the process, but it was still the only way to get bread. But as the farm community grew so did the importance of a grist mill. Farmers grew wheat, oats, barley and corn and a place had to be found to grind that grain into flour and meal. The miller was dependent on Iowa’s abundant rivers and streams for his power. If the river was too high or too low, the mill had to close down completely.
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