116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Time Machine: Quaker Oats
Venerable Cedar Rapids cereal mill celebrates 150 years
Not many Cedar Rapids enterprises are older than the 140-year-old Gazette, but one business is now celebrating its 150th year — Quaker Oats, a division of PepsiCo since 2001.
The oatmeal so many of us have for breakfast was introduced to U.S. consumers in 1854 by Ferdinand Schumacher, who ground oats at his mill in Akron, Ohio.
Robert Stuart, a Canadian grain miller, came to Cedar Rapids in 1872. He acquired the old Hall elevator on Third Street NE and partnered with Henry G. Higley to start a mill that exported its oats to England and Scotland.
After that mill burned in 1874, George Douglas bought out Higley’s interest, and he and Stuart rebuilt the business. It produced 600 barrels of ground oats per day and was soon renamed North Star Mill.
George Douglas died in 1884, and his son, George B. Douglas, became partners with Stuart. They incorporated the business as the Cereal Milling Co.
The plant’s output had increased to 750 barrels a day in 1887, when the mill again caught fire. The loss was estimated at $200,000 — more than $6 million in today’s dollars. A new, larger mill began operating in May 1888.
The ‘combine’
Meanwhile, in Ohio, Henry Seymor and William Heston founded Quaker Mill in 1877 in Ravenna. They came up with the Quaker brand and patented it.
The Seymour/Heston enterprise went bankrupt in 1881 and was bought by Henry Parson Crowell of Ohio, who turned it around with a huge advertising campaign using the Quaker brand.
A decade later, it joined other companies — referred to as a “combine,” with Stuart, Douglas, Schumacher and other oatmeal manufacturers — to create the American Cereal Co. Schumacher, the one who’d introduced oatmeal to consumers, was elected president.
Schumacher sold his shares in February 1899, with H.P. Crowell of Cleveland, Ohio, succeeding him as president of the American Cereal Co.
A massive building campaign ensued, more than doubling the size of the Cedar Rapids mill. One notorious Cedar Rapids area, known as “Smoky Row,” was cleared for Quaker’s new buildings.
The American Cereal combine held sway over the oatmeal industry until 1901.
That year, 10 cereal mills outside the combine met in Chicago and formed a new combine, the Great Western Cereal Co. under the leadership of Diamond Match President O.C. Barber. It was assumed that American Cereal Co. would join the new combine.
Shown in the background (right) is the Quaker Oats plant. In 1901 the American Cereal Co. was incorporated as Quaker Oats. In 1905, the company suffered from a fire that consumed four elevators filled with over one million bushels of oats. In the foreground is a dam on the Cedar River. The facility at left background, with the smokestack, is the city's water treatment plant. Photo 1902
The Quaker Oats plant, seen at Third Street near B Avenue NE in Cedar Rapids. 1902.
Quaker’s founding
Instead, the leadership of American Cereal decided to form a new company, the Quaker Oats Co.
George Douglas’ sons, Walter and George B., decided to bow out of the new company and founded the Douglas Starchworks in 1902.
Quaker Oats Co. was incorporated in New Jersey on Sept. 21, 1901, with a capital stock of $12 million. Its principal plants were in Akron, Ohio (closed in 1970), and Cedar Rapids.
Once more, fire destroyed the Quaker Oats plant in March 1905.
Plant Manager George Stuart cut short a vacation in Cuba to join assistant plant Superintendent George Laird. The plant was quickly rebuilt and by October was ready for operation.
A $4 million to $5 million expansion created the largest cereal mill in the world.
Two new products, macaroni and Aunt Jemima pancake flour, were added to the product line of oatmeal, cornmeal, pearl barley, wheat flakes, puffed rice, puffed wheat, wheat flour and a variety of stock and poultry feeds.
Growth
The first concrete grain elevator was built at the Quaker plant in Cedar Rapids in 1909.
Quaker took over Great Western in 1911, keeping some of its dozen or so plants and closing the rest, but keeping the rights to Great Western’s trademarks, including Mother’s Oats.
Quaker oatmeal was marketed in square boxes until 1915. Consumers cut a hole in the corner of the box to pour out the amount needed and placed the open box on the shelf, where the cereal lost a little of its freshness.
As a result Quaker came up with its iconic cylindrical packaging tube in 1915 with a lid that could be replaced after opening.
The Stuarts
Building at the Cedar Rapids plant again boomed in 1926 with the addition of two warehouses, Elevator G, an oat mill, cleaning house, and the 13-story packaging building.
The Robert Stuart Memorial Hall and recreation center went up in 1927.
Quaker Oats President John Stuart of Chicago was in Cedar Rapids for the dedication of the center in honor of his father, who was born in Cedar Rapids in 1877. The 60-by-160-foot gym could seat 2,000 as an assembly hall or be used as a handball, basketball, volleyball, indoor baseball or tennis facility.
The building also saw annual children’s Christmas parties and employee social gatherings.
The Stuarts remained at the head of Quaker Oats and its predecessors for more than 100 years. That ended in 1983 when Robert Stuart’s grandson, Robert D. Stuart Jr., retired.
The Quaker Oats sign at the company's plant in Cedar Rapids. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)
Over the years the company has diversified, acquiring such companies as Fisher Price, Eye Wear One, Snapple, Tropicana and Gatorade. While the others have been spun off, Gatorade was the reason PepsiCo Inc. acquired Quaker in 2001.
The merger made the company the fourth largest consumer-goods company in the world. Today, the Quaker plant in Cedar Rapids employs nearly 1,000.
Comments: D.fannonlangton@gmail.com
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