History would not fall easily on Mar. 1 when the Humboldt Flour Mill came crashing down.
It took the Fulda contractors, K&D/Prime Time Drilling Inc., a few tries to pull the 55 year old building down but, eventually, it came down in a spectacular cloud of dust (See the video here).
Kristen Hoppe and his brother, Chad, were hired to tear down the building by Darryl Classen. Before bringing the building down, Kristen said his team went into the building and cut the steal beams.
Without that step, the building would have never come down, says Kristen.
“Just from us pulling on it, if we hadn’t cut the beams like we originally did, it wouldn’t have come down. It never would have.”
Other than some dead pigeons and bird feces over the few years of it being abandoned, the inside of the building was very well cleaned before it was left.
“Everything was swept up, everything was clean, except inside the mills. There was some flour left, which was to be expected.”
It all started in 1956 for McNab Flour Mill employee, Wilf Chamney.
When fire burned down his workplace, Chamney took the opportunity to take over Humboldt’s flour mill industry after his employer folded.
“The Humboldt Flour Mills began its operation milling flour and canola, but in the late 1950s Chamney made the fateful decision to process mustard,” wrote Jennifer Hoesgen with the in the book, 100 Interesting Stories about Humboldt.
Chamney contracted farmers to grow mustard in the area, says Hoesgen, for three different types of mustards; yellow for hot dog mustard, brown for dijon mustard, and oriental for specialty mustards.
By the time his construction was done on his flour mill empire, Chamney had constructed one warehouse and office in 1956, an elevator in 1957, another elevator with cleaning equipment in 1960, a pneumatically-operated mill in 1961, and a new cleaning plant in 1966.
Allan Stuckel was hired in 1960 as an administrator, keeping track of sales and accounts.
In 1961, Stuckel helped out on the construction of the pneumatically-operated mill, even laying a row of bricks.
Art Uliski worked at the mill from 1965 packing flour and running the mill as head miller until he retired in 1998.
Many employees worked for Chamney who really cared for his workers, says Uliski.
“If you asked him for something, he’d help you out.
