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Free Tours of Oakesdale Flour Mill Highlight MaryJane’s Farm Fair |
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• View an article and a short clip on KLEW-TV about  For the first time since 2002, the historic flour mill in Oakesdale, Washington, will be available for free public tours on the 4th of July, as part of MaryJane’s Farm Fair sponsored by MaryJane Butters. The mill, owned by the Joseph Barron family for almost a century and listed now on the National Historic Register, is the only remaining flour mill on the Palouse, complete with all machinery in working order. Guided group tours of the mill will be offered at no charge from 10 am until 4 pm on July 4, approximately every hour. For safety reasons, no children below age 12 will be permitted on the tours. Those wishing to join a tour should expect to walk up stairs and on uneven surfaces. “Nineteen towns in Whitman County had flour mills built between 1870 and 1910,” explained Edwin Garretson, retired history professor from Washington State University and a recognized expert on Whitman County history. “Now only the Oakesdale mill remains — it is the best preserved flour mill in eastern Washington.” The Oakesdale mill was built in 1890, and Joseph Barron, Sr. bought it in 1907. He improved and maintained the intricate machinery, built of hardwood and steel, that cut, ground, separated, and bagged a selection of flours and animal feeds. In 1909, Joseph Barron, Jr. was born, and at age 18, started working full-time at the mill. He took over the family business in 1955 upon the death of his father. But Barron’s Mill could not compete with the huge centralized flour factories coming onto the scene and closed forever in 1960. However, Joseph Barron, Jr. could not forget the mill or the milling. He explained that he had “flour in his blood.” He set up a small electric specialty mill in his garage and prepared organic flours and cereals for the new natural foods market. And he refused to demolish the original mill or sell the machinery. Before his death in 2000, Barron found the person to maintain his legacy. He sold both his new electric mill in his garage and the original four-story mill building to MaryJane Butters of Moscow, Idaho. She now uses the new mill to grind cereals and flours for sale in her MaryJanesFarm products. And as she promised Joseph Barron, Jr., she is committed to preserving his original mill.
MaryJane’s Historic Flour Mill is more than a slice of local history. This mill is a monument to the workers who settled the Palouse, coaxed wheat from its soil, and built the farming communities that remain today. The building itself, constructed on huge timbers and pegged with wooden dowels, looks more like a massive sculpture than a functional structure. “In addition to the guided tours, July 4 Farm Fair festivities at MaryJane’s Historic Flour Mill in Oakesdale, Washington, will include live music, lawn games, food, as well as vendor booths offering antiques, farm collectibles, and farmers’ products,” said René Groom, event coordinator. MaryJane’s Farm Fair includes events on July 3 and 5 as well. Also on July 4, Farm Fair includes activities in seven additional small eastern Washington communities. MaryJane Butters writes a nationally-syndicated newspaper column and edits a bimonthly magazine, MaryJanesFarm. She opened her first retail store, at the Plaza Shops of the Coeur d’Alene Resort in August of 2008, and her second store in downtown Moscow in May of 2009. Following the publication by Random House of her third book, MaryJane’s Outpost: Unleashing Your Inner Wild, she is now working on three other books. The books focus on quilt making, bread baking, and diet makeovers. |
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Even today, that 19th-century milling equipment is in working order. (Although it would never pass modern-day OSHA requirements.) Starting the motor in the basement would spin the wide leather belts that power the individual machines. Wheat would auger upward to the top floor and then cascade through the rolling machines, the separators, the sifters, and finally to the baggers. A visit to MaryJane’s Historic Flour Mill is an excursion into the world of turn-of-the-century flour-making, when up to 40 workers filled the mill, tended the machines, and hefted the bags.
