4 — The Mooreland Leader Thursday, July 28, 2016

10-and-under Kid’s Inc. baseball — 3-7 regular season. Team members and coaches include (front, from left) Jesus Borunda, Cameron Cox, Kaplin McNaught, (back) Mychal Torres, George Wiles, Corbin Cox, Rylee Hutchinson, Grayson Bridges, Silas Mabra and Jackson Crotts. (Photo provided)

13-and-under Kid’s Inc. softball — 13-1, first in league and tournament. Team members and coach-es include (front, from left) Trinity Meliza, Jenna Wommack, Taylor Winn, Bryanna Evans, Kylie Ruessing, Bricelyn Schlarb, (back) Shea Eckenrode, Cheyenne Kahoe, Kyrah Vaughan, Jaycie Spruell, Kenna Chip and Addie Stinnett. Not pictured is Coach Staci Kahoe.

Mooreland Summer League Teams(fifth in a series)

If your team photo has not been featured in our summer league picturesplease e-mail picture to leader2@pldi.net or bring to The Mooreland Leader.

Include picture identifications, season record and regular season and tournament finish.

With the development of rail-roads, land run settlements and a greater demand for agricultural products, grain elevators quick-ly played an increasing role in the agricultural development of Oklahoma.

In 1892, just three years after the 1889 Land Run, a small ele-vator in Yukon was purchased by two Czechoslovakian families – the Kroutils and Dobrys. By the 1930s the mill was processing up to 2,000 barrels of Yukon’s Best Flour per day.

In 1906, when Oklahoma had 50 mills grinding an average of 7,000 barrels of flour per day, J. Lloyd Ford, a former flour salesman and chocolate company manager, bought a small mill in Shawnee and renamed it the Shawnee Milling Co. This company operated two of the remaining four Oklahoma mills in 2015.

In 1910, a former school teacher named W. B. Johnston invested in a 40,000 bushel grain elevator in Enid and eventually expanded to 32 elevators in the region.

These are significant examples of how concrete grain elevators became historically and architec-turally significant in Oklahoma and other Great Plains states. This was reported extensively in the “The-matic Survey of Grain Elevators in Western Oklahoma, 1889-1950,” by W. David Baird of Pepperdine University of Malibu, Calif.

“Grain elevators are profound symbols of time and place to Okla-homans,” said Dr. Bob Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society. “The grain ele-vator in the 32-county study area by W. David Baird had its genesis in the evolution of commercial agriculture. It expanded with the opening of the Unassigned Lands for settlement in 1889, the organi-zation of Oklahoma Territory and the 1907 development of the state of Oklahoma.”

Grain elevators represented “human habitation” more than industrial architecture, said Baird in his 1990 report to OHS. The survey was requested by OHS and is anchored in the agricultural-re-

lated areas now featured in the Crossroads of Commerce exhibit at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City.

History Center visitors can find agriculture information in second section of the exhibit, including topics such as “Adding Value to Grass,” “Money in the Pocket, Food on the Table” and “Cathe-drals of the Plains.”

“This was one of our regular architectural/historic surveys done through our request for proposals process,” said Melvena Heisch, OHS preservation director. “In this process, we seek a partner institution to carry out our scope of services. We cover 60 percent of costs from our federal Historic Preservation Fund, and our partner institution provides the required 40 percent match.

“David Baird was in charge of the project, and Pepperdine University, even though it is in California, provided the match.”

Before the land runs, Native Americans in Oklahoma engaged in “little more than subsistence farming,” said the Baird report. With the opening of the Unas-signed lands and the subsequent organization of Oklahoma Territo-ry, the demands for “cheap land” grew rapidly, he said.

In 1889 the population grew to 700,000 in the western half of Okla-homa, he reported. The Oklahoma farm harvest grew to 2.25 million baskets of wheat in 1896 and to 20.3 million in 1899, farmed on more than 1.5 million acres.

This was reflected in the rapid growth of grain elevators, includ-ing the Yukon Mill and Grain Co.

owned by the Kroutils and Dobrys. By the 1930s, the mill had storage capacity of more than one million bushels of grain.

“John Kroutils found other ways to add value to the grain,” said the Baird report. “He founded the Yukon National Bank so farmers could plant their crops, and he founded the Progress Beer Co. after Prohibition was repealed in 1934. From 1959 to 1974, the 3.2 beer was bottled under the Lone Star Brand.”

In Shawnee, three generations of the Ford family prospered by taking additional risks during an era of consolidation. They rebuilt and modernized their mills after fires in 1934 and 1954. In 1964, responding to demand for conve-nience in the kitchen, they started selling packaged baking mixes. In 2015 Shawnee Mills still em-ployed more than 200 people in its two mills.

In Enid Lew Meibergen, a grand-son of W. B. Johnson, added to his grandfather’s success. Meibergen bought the company in 1976 and built a 50,000 bushel-per-hour shuttle train, a trucking company, five seed-cleaning facilities, an experimental farm and water ports in two states.

“By 2014, Meibergen’s terminal elevators in Enid could store more than 20 million bushels of wheat,” said the Baird report.

The Baird survey included 490 Oklahoma sites, requiring the project director to drive more than 5,300 miles from Waurika to Boise City and from Newkirk to Hollis.

“Among the results are a dis-cussion of types of grain elevators, an identification of the properties by county and an evaluation of their significance by Prof. David Gebhard of the University of California, Santa Barbara,” said Blackburn. “We are proud to pres-ent this report in the Crossroads of Commerce exhibit at our History Center. It tells a great historic story of how Oklahoma grew to where we are today.”

Wednesday, August 31, 201610:00 a.m.

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