Hive of the Queen City

Hive of the Queen City. . The Falls were at the heart of the young city of Sioux Falls , nicknamed the Queen City. The Queen Bee Mill stood at the most powerful point of the Falls and was a center of activity in the 1880s. , The Queen Bee Mill was sited to take full advantage of the power possessed by the Falls. The Mill was unusually large and its equipment was the most advanced available. , Completed in 1881, the Mill included a seven-story building which housed the milling machinery, a 100,000 bushel grain elevator, a warehouse that could hold 10,000 barrels, a turbine house, a gate house and a cooper shop (where barrels were made). It was equipped to produce 1,200 barrels of flour a day, which was about four times the amount made by a typical Midwest flour mill. , Producing this much flour required a large, reliable supply of water and wheat. Usually, there was too little water and too little wheat , so the Queen Bee Mill never made the amount of flour expected. It closed after two years of operation. , The Mill re-sold several times to investors who believed that the Mill could be profitably operated. Most owners abandoned their plans before even re-opening the Mill. The building burned in 1956, leaving only a charred shell. The top five floors were later removed. The first and second stories stand as a reminder of the ambitious vision of Sioux Falls' early business leaders. , Running the Queen Bee Mill , The steps in the milling process haven't changed much since the Queen Bee Mill produced flour. Grinding, cleaning, separating, sifting and packaging are the main steps, just as they were in the 1880s. The drawing, left, describes the types of machinery and the operations that occurred on each floor of the Mill. , The grain entered the second story of the building, where it was cleaned and ground. Next, it was elevated to the top of the building where gravity drew the particles down through the sifting and separating equipment. Once the particles reached the bottom, they were elevated again sifting and separating. After several passes through the equipment, the flour was collected and packed into sacks or barrels.