Heritage in the Hat: Grist for the Mill

By Malcolm Sissons on May 30, 2020.

Submitted photo--Medicine Hat Milling Company, the first flour mill in the city.

The recent announcement of the closing of the Parrish and Heimbecker grain handling facility on Kipling Street brings to an end an important chapter in the industrial heritage of Medicine Hat. Our city was once a major milling centre for Western Canada, with four flour mills.

The Medicine Hat Milling Co. was established by John McNeely in 1901. Located on South Railway, it was acquired in 1914 by the Lake of the Woods Milling Co. That company, established by businessmen connected with the CPR board, had a major mill at Keewatin, Ontario, and set about modernizing and expanding this mill in 1916. The mill had a long run and for a time was known as the Five Roses Flour Mill. It was eventually acquired by Ogilvie in 1954 but about 1975, most milling operations ceased. In 1976, it was converted to the Olde Inn at the Mill hotel and restaurant. The huge concrete towers and brick milling building next to the Allowance Avenue overpass continue to the present as the Silver Buckle.

One of the best-preserved mills in western Canada, the Ogilvie Flour Mill on Allowance Avenue opened in 1913. Scottish immigrants Archibald Ogilvie and sons established their first mill in Quebec in 1801. A.W. Ogilvie & Company with mills throughout Ontario, Manitoba, and the Northwest Territories, was the biggest flour miller in the world. In 1902, a Montreal syndicate purchased the company and renamed it The Ogilvie Flour Mill Co. Ltd. Looking to expand into the western wheat belt, Medicine Hat was selected due to its location on the trans-continental rail line and inexpensive fuel and power.

In 1968, the Ogilvie Flour Mill Co. was purchased by Labatt’s Ltd. and subsequently in 1997 by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), of Decatur, Illinois, then the largest milling company in the United States. The Medicine Hat mill was permanently closed in 2013 and operations centralized in Calgary.

Hedley Shaw was a miller and politician in Ontario where he purchased several mills. In 1915, the Hedley Shaw Milling Co. built a mill on Seven Persons Creek. In 1923, the mill took the Maple Leaf Milling name, manufacturing Purity Flour. Acquired by Canadian Pacific Enterprises in 1981, it continued to mill flour until 1983, when milling operations were transferred to Calgary. It was acquired in 1985 by Parrish and Heimbecker and operated as a grain elevator until the recent announcement.

Mr. Adolf Dederer, a local entrepreneur, turned a fur storage building on Spencer Street into the Gas City Flour Mill in 1931. A much smaller mill than his competitors, he made his mark with Cream Loaf Flour and Excelsior Puffed Wheat. The puffing process created a cannon sound and was the subject of complaints from the neighbourhood. Taken over by Rudy Dederer and Robert Phanmiller in 1944, the milling operations ceased in 1948 while puffing continued until 1952, and all that remains is part of the milling building, still visible on Spencer Street.

The only legacy today of Medicine Hat’s enormous role in twentieth century flour milling are the silent concrete towers that mark the location of our milling past, much as castle towers dominate the European landscape.

Malcolm Sissons is a former member of the Heritage Resources Committee of the City of Medicine Hat