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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Then and Now: Spokane Flour Mill and Centennial Milling

Circa 1910: Spokane Flour Mill, left, and Centennial Mill once sat side-by-side on the north shore of the Spokane River through the 1890s. The Spokane Flour Mill closed in 1972 and was converted to a multiuse building in 1973. Centennial Mill was torn down in 1963 and operations moved to a location on East Trent Avenue, which was built around 1940. (Frank Palmer/The Spokesman-Review Photo Archive)
Circa 1910: Spokane Flour Mill, left, and Centennial Mill once sat side-by-side on the north shore of the Spokane River through the 1890s. The Spokane Flour Mill closed in 1972 and was converted to a multiuse building in 1973. Centennial Mill was torn down in 1963 and operations moved to a location on East Trent Avenue, which was built around 1940. (Frank Palmer/The Spokesman-Review Photo Archive)
By Jesse Tinsley jesset@spokesman.com(509) 459-5378

Spokane Flour Mill and Centennial Milling sat side-by-side on the north bank of the Spokane River.

Businessman Simon Oppenheimer had traveled to the Netherlands to borrow from Dutch banks to rebuild a fire-damaged lumber mill in Spokane and to build his own flouring operation. After he finished the timber mill, his large brick flour mill was completed in 1895, but Oppenheimer ran short of money and as the banks moved to foreclose, he skipped town.

Lawsuits tied up the property until 1901, when it finally opened as Inland Empire Milling. The name changed a few years later to Spokane Flour Mill and produced flour until 1972. As Expo ’74 approached, the historic structure was renovated into shops and restaurants, as it is today.

Business partners George Pahl, Sam Glasgow and Moritz Thomsen, who had met in Iowa, founded Centennial Mill Company on the north bank of the Spokane River around 1889.

Thomsen, born in 1850, had shipped out on merchant ships from his home in Denmark at the age of 14. He married and moved to America.

His partnership with Pahl and Glasgow brought Thomsen to Spokane. After less than two years in business, Thomsen bought out his partners and then went on to build or buy grain mills in Seattle, Tacoma, Ritzville, Chelan, Sprague, Paha, Wenatchee, Reardan, Creston, Harrington and Portland. When Thomsen died in 1932 at the age of 82, his fortune was estimated at several million dollars.

Author Clinton Snowden wrote of Thomsen in “History of Washington: The Rise and Progress of an American State”: “He is a tireless worker; and frequently he is the first to arrive at the company’s offices and the last to leave.”

Thomsen summed up his business philosophy: “Be punctual and honest. Learn the value of money and the pleasure of working to accomplish something.”

In 1940, the Centennial Mill built the large milling and storage complex on East Trent Avenue and later tore down one on the north bank in 1963. In 1960, Centennial Mills had merged with United Pacific Corporation, later called Univar. Centennial was bought by Archer Daniels Midland, which operates many mills across the country, in 1981.