H96.40.1

Photograhic print, showing the construction of the grain elevators on the Oakland Estuary in about 1920. The elevators were one of the first cooperative farm experiments intended to encourage farmers to ship their grain in bulk rather than in sacks. From the Oakland Tribune Yearbook for 1922: "One of the largest agricultural projects yet undertaken in California by the Farm Bureau in centered at Oakland. The ultimate success of this undertaking will do much toward making the City of Oakland the largest grain port on the West Coast. The farmers of the state have long sought betterments in economic storage and marketing of cereal crops and it has finally come that at Oakland the farmers' first comprehensive bulk grain elevator terminal should be established." These elevators became part of a flour mill by the late 1920s. After several incarnations, the flour mill became ConAgra in 1973. In 1996, ConAgra milled 1,000,000 pounds of flour a day. Grain arrives by train and is put in the elevators; after milling 60% of the flour leaves in 20-25 bulk trucks each day and 40% leave in 100, 50, and 25 pound bags. Most goes to commercial bakeries.