Editor’s note: This is the second part of a three-part series on a brief history of the Tyrone Milling Company. Part II covers the fifty-nine years (1908-1967) the mill was owned and operated by the Kesslers, and the fifteen years (1967-1981) that John G. Johnston owned and operated the mill. Edited by Charlie Hoyer.
The Kessler Years
In 1908, George W. Kessler Jr. (1871-1962), son of George W. Kessler Sr. (1825-1905), became a silent partner with Aaron Wesley Beyer (1847-1887), an uncle, then owner of the Tyrone Milling Co., which had begun operations in 1904. (Aaron’s father also was a miller and had owned and operated the Fuoss mill for many years. His paternal grandfather was David Beyer, in early days a resident of Frederick, Md., who came to central Pennsylvania in 1800, settling in the upper part of Sinking Valley.)
In 1917, George Kessler Jr. took active control of the company. He was joined by his son, Gilbert M. Kessler (1902-1987) in 1926. The Kesslers, father and son, purchased the Beyer interest from the heirs in 1936, and Gilbert took a partnership in the business with his father. George Kessler retired from active business in 1945, and his other son, David B. Kessler (1904-1996), then joined the firm as a partner with Gilbert.
In 1947, the Kessler brothers converted the mill to electricity and had the old mill dam filled in. And, in 1952, they added a new office building to the mill.
Originally used to grind wheat flour for human consumption, the mill started producing various mixtures of grain feeds for livestock and acted as a grain merchant. In the later years, the company handled about a quarter-million bushels of grain annually. In addition to the Kessler brothers, as many as eight employees worked at the mill.
The Ty-Co Turkey Test
The mill really was a manufacturing plant, since large quantities of grain bought from local farmers were ground and mixed into the Ty-Co brand of feed. The Kesslers had great confidence in the feed, which was made by their own secret formula. One year they did a practicable test that backed them up. They used 320 Christmas turkeys (not yet Christmas turkeys because they were poults only ten days old) for the test. The turkeys were divided into two flocks of 160 each. One flock was fed a standard, well-advertised feed, while turkeys in the other flock, only a few feet away on the same floor, were raised on Ty-Co feed. The proof was on the scales and in the eating come that Christmas.
The plant had put in 20-hour-a-day shifts during the harvest: dumping, drying, grinding and mixing, and shipping. The grain was brought in over an area within a radius of fifty miles, including northern Blair and parts of Huntingdon and Centre Counties. They used all the corn that they could buy locally, but shipped thousands of bushels of wheat to Philadelphia and Baltimore seaports. Each carload held 1800 to 2000 bushels.
Because of their yen for light, white bread, the people of Blair County presented a curious paradox of exporting home-grown wheat by the trainload while at the same time the people demanded bread made from Western wheat. Home-grown wheat is softer than the Western. It is used in the United States for pretzels and pastries. In the old days when the mills were run by water power with burs that ground it more coarsely and the dough was kneaded by hand, Pennsylvania flour was O.K. Europeans, however, prefer it. They like their bread with all the vitamins in it.
1953 Harvest Report
In July 1953, an article in the Altoona Mirror asked, “Where is all the wheat going?” A reporter, traveling through the area’s farmlands, said that “fields of wheat with heads bending over under the weight of full, ripe grain tell the travelers along the highways and byways that harvest is here. Combines racing like magic to strip the ground of the rich bounty have reduced the harvesting to the maximum of mechanical efficiency.”
“This year the major portion of the crop will be shipped abroad. Carload lots are being shipped from the Curry Supply Co., the Tyrone Milling Co., and the Farm Bureau, the largest dealers in Blair County. The wheat is sent to the seaports of Philadelphia or Baltimore from where it is shipped overseas to feed the hungry peoples of Europe and Asia. Wherever it goes, it will feed the hungry.”
The Brothers in Community Affairs
The Kessler brothers were active in community affairs. Gilbert served on the Board of Directors, Blair County National Bank for many years. He married Mary Helene Cox (1905-1944) in February 1926. He married Marjorie E. Kurtz (1914-2004) in June 1946.
David was a charter member and past president of the Tyrone Hospital Board, past president of the Kiwanis Club of Tyrone, and a member of the Tyrone Area Chamber of Commerce, Tyrone Lodge 494, Free and Accepted Masons, Altoona Consistory, and Jaffa Shrine. He married Dorothy May Morrow (1908-1997) on June 15, 1935.
Both brothers were very generous to community causes. David Hershey tells a story about their odd ways of supporting the Grange Fair, in Sinking Valley. At the auctions, they would whimsically bid against each other for a trivial item just to bring up the price, which, of course, they considered as making a donation in support of the fair.
The Johnston Years, 1967-1981
In May 1967, the Tyrone Milling Co. was purchased by John G. Johnston, of Marengo, Warriors Mark. John had been operating portable feed mills in the area since 1957.
Under John’s ownership, the mill continued to be a major supplier of livestock feeds. For a time, he continued to operate and maintain his mobile mills at various farmers’ sites.
He made several state-of-the-art (for that time) improvements to the mill. He installed a storage-and-handling system for bulk ingredients consisting of a blower that blew the ingredients up onto the fourth floor of the mill, where they dropped into a scale on the third floor to be weighed and then diverted into the mixer on the first floor. The storage capacity was 100 tons. John erected four ingredient bins to hold soybean meal, distillers, and pellets. He installed a new mixing and molassification system. He devised an enclosed auger to move feed from a delivery truck to the farmer’s bin. Finally, the shed containing bulk fertilizer was built during this time.
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