World Grain - June 2009 - 53

FEATURE: IAOM CELEBRATES MILESTONE IN MICHIGAN

donations for the International Milling Education Foundation
(IMEF) have risen to $228,000. The IMEF is building an endowment to fund a variety of educational programs, professional development efforts and research projects for the grain
milling industry. Through IMEF funding, IAOM recently announced that it will grant a $2,500 scholarship each year to a
deserving student in Kansas State University's milling science
program. The first student to receive this scholarship is Drew
Pettijohn, who will be a junior at KSU next year.
MILLING TRADITION
Throughout the week in Grand Rapids, 130 conference
attendees took advantage of the opportunity to tour The
King Milling's facility in nearby Lowell. The site is one
of a handful of water-powered flour mills (about 3% of the
mill's energy is generated by water) left in the U.S. The Flat
River was first dammed in 1844, and the Superior Mill was
built on the facility's current site in 1867. The King Milling
Company was founded in 1890, after Superior Mill filed for
bankruptcy. At its founding, the facility produced 390 cwts
of flour per day.
The Doyle family became involved with King Milling in
1900 when Thomas Doyle purchased stock in the company.
In 1943, the old Superior Mill burned to the ground. The

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Representing three generations of the Doyle family, which has operated King
Milling Company in Lowell, Michigan since 1900, are, from left: Patrick Doyle,
director of special projects; Jim Doyle, senior vice-president; Brian Doyle,
president; King Doyle, chairman; Steve Doyle, vice-president.

Doyle family, under the leadership of Thomas' son, William,
used this as an opportunity to improve the mill. A state-of-theart concrete mill filled with all the most modern milling equipment of its time was completed in 1945. This mill produced 600
cwts of flour per day and could store 80,000 bushels of wheat.
After William passed away unexpectedly, his sons King and
Mike took over. King's son Brian and Mike's sons Jim and
Steve joined the company in the early 1980s.
Together with their fathers, they increased the daily capacity of the white-flour mill to a fully automated 5,400 cwts and
built a whole-wheat mill capable of producing 5,000 cwts of
whole-wheat flour per day. The storage capacity was increased
to approximately 2,800,000 bushels of wheat. The most recent
update in 2004 saw an additional floor added to the mill, and
an increase in capacity to 8,000 cwts.
Steve Doyle, who gave a presentation on the history of the
mill as part of the educational program at this year's conference, said using the same exterior structure since 1945, the
mill is now 85% more space efficient and produces 13 times
WG
the amount it could when it was originally built.
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World Grain - June 2009

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