This huge complex still mills flour, as workers we spoke to confirmed. Massive, hulking and dominating this stretch of I-70, the grain silos have long been a landmark in North City.
Now owned by ADM, the silos are no longer kept immaculately white, as the previous owners insisted upon. Workers stated that ADM “didn’t want to spend the money.”
Train tracks snake throughout the property, and the actual physical square feet of the massive building is relatively small.
Update: The Wonderbread Bakery, on North Broadway, is now closed.
The nearby Wonderbread Bakery, which we couldn’t find, is said to be the largest in the world when I went on a tour of the complex in 1986.
I remember, as a young cop in North St Louis in the 1970s getting a call to these grain elevators to assist with traffic when a fire erupted there. If I remember correctly it was in July or August and Hotter than heck. By the time I was able to go back in service and end my shift I was soaked in sweat.
Fascinating story, Mike. Do you recall the cause of the fire? Obviously flour mills are very flammable.
I grew up in Walnut Park in the ’60s and went to St. Philip Neri. It was a great place with bakeries and confectionaries on every other block. We had ball practice at Hubbell field until the housing project was built and destroyed the neighborhood by scaring everyone away, Sad to see it now.
Joe, where was the housing project?
I think this is what Joe is talking about Chris
https://imgoat.com/uploads/512bd43d9c/10570.png
Also, they were razed between 2004-2005
Thanks!
My father worked there two times from about 1935 to 1968. I worked there 68 to 70. The tall white building is not the mill but is warehouse for flour ready for shipping. There are actually two mills there built at separate times.