Manuscripts Collection
Donald Neal Gregg, a lifelong collector of documentation on the flour milling industry in Minneapolis and the Upper Midwest, was born December 21, 1914 in Sherwood, North Dakota. He moved to St. Paul with his family during his childhood, graduating in 1940 with a B.S. degree in forestry from the University of Minnesota. Gregg enlisted in the Army Air Force and served more than four years during the World War II period, leaving the military (in 1946?) as a technical sergeant.
Gregg went to work for the King Midas Feed Mills (Minneapolis) in 1946 as a clerk, and was promoted to assistant purchasing agent in 1951. He joined the Atkinson Milling Company (Minneapolis) in 1954 as wheat and production bookkeeper, remaining until 1962 when the company was sold. He then took a job as a real estate assistant with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Minneapolis, in which he was reponsble for researching federal land titles.
Throughout his government career and his subsequent retirement, Gregg pursued his hobby researching and collecting two-dimensional materials documenting the flour milling industry, primarily in Minneapolis, but also in many other places throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota. He also pursued those interests as a longtime volunteer with the Minnesota Historical Society and the Richfield Historical Society. Prior to his death on December 8, 1987, Gregg willed his extensive milling research collection to the Minnesota Historical Society.
Don Gregg married his wife Mary Jane in 1947. They had three sons: John, Thomas, and Robert.
The largest group of materials consists of files arranged by Minnesota city, with individual files for each mill within a city. There also are files containing background material on milling technology and the milling industry in general, files arranged by state (mostly Minnesota, but also including North Dakota and Wisconsin, with a few items from other states), files arranged by county and city (including large files on the many Minneapolis milling firms), and biographical files on individual millers.
Individual files typically include photocopies of news notes and advertisements from the
These documents are organized into the following sections:
Three albums of milling-related printed matter are cataloged separately in the Minnesota Historical Society sound and visual collections.
Accession number: 14,015
Processed by: John M. Wickre, April 1989
Catalog ID number: 08-00009652
Gregg's item-level inventory of the materials in the collection.
Bemis Bag Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
"Feedstuffs," etc.
These files list the names of companies that were involved in the milling trade. Milling businesses provided many types of equipment, such as purifiers, grain separators, boilers, and engines to name a few, that were used by millwrights. The files contain various illustrations of milling equipment (as depicted in advertisements from milling directories of the late 19th century), company brochures, as well as diagrams and blueprints.
One file at end of box contains the names of machinists, millwrights and others involved in the milling industry.
General information on mills and millers, organized by county.
Cards are arranged alphabetically by county.
Detailed information about particular mills, organized by city, including information about mills in various cities in Minnesota, the United States, and Europe. Each file typically contains information pertaining to the history of a particular mill, such as its founding, specific geographic location, milling capacity, as well as the type of machinery used. The files contaion letters, manuals, blueprints, and photographs of former milling sites.