540 County Rd History - Louisville Grain Elevator

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Colorado Milling and Elevator Company owned nearly three hundred mills, warehouses, and elevators ..." (p. 197). The following is a portrait of J.K. Mullen from 1933: Portrait accessed online from the Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, www.denverlibrary.org As explained in the UC-Denver report on Eastern Plains and Front Range Grain Elevators of Colorado, Mullen was not only responsible for bringing to Colorado the Hungarian milling process, but he also played a leading role in creating high altitude flour. The fact that he owned both the grain elevators where farmers would bring their grain and the flour mills where the grain could be processed had the effect of tightening his control on the industry. Although an accounting of the number of remaining J.K. Mullen's Colorado grain elevators and mills could not be located for this report, information was found regarding Boulder County grain buildings. According to available information, two separate milling/elevator structures in Boulder burned down in 1889 and 1931. Longmont lost a flour mill and Mullen -owned grain elevator to fire in 1934. According to the UC-Denver report on Eastern Plains and Front Range Grain Elevators of Colorado, two other elevators besides the Louisville Grain Elevator still stand in Boulder County: in Lafayette and on a private farm in Hygiene. As with many historic elevators, the elevator in Lafayette has had metal siding installed on its sides to reduce the risk of fire, something that has never been done to Louisville's, other than in a few limited sections. Specific information about the elevator in Hygiene could not be located for this report. Louisville's elevator is the only one in the County that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A 1918 Denver Post article shows that Louisville area wheat farmers at times disputed Mullen's practices, not unlike similar conflicts of the time between Louisville coal miners and the mining companies. The articles states: The wheat growers of the Lafayette -Louisville district are up in arms over the practices of the J.K. Mullen elevator there. Instead of the $2.20 per bushel price fixed by the federal food commission, the elevator is paying only about $1.00 or less for the highest grade wheat.... [The] Mullen explanation of a deduction of the freight to Kansas City does not explain this entire discrepancy. ... [The farmers] are told that the purchase of wheat may be abandoned if there is any complaint. 3