Serving Whitman County since 1877
More on the Unifine mill
Several weeks ago you carried an interesting article about the development at WSU of the Unifine process of milling flour, and some of its practitioners.
While informative and enjoyable, the article’s startling omission of any mention of Oakesdale’s own Joseph Barron and the Unifine mill he operated in his retirement years leaves the story incomplete, as his contribution to this interesting history affected many of your readers.
Plenty of others would be better qualified than I to profile the man and his wonderful operation, and perhaps answer my own questions such as, how did he come by the mill? Will we ever see it in operation again, or has it vanished into thin air? But my wife and I were privileged to be customers of his, and I can’t resist passing on a few words about our acquaintance with this pioneer miller and his flour.
Our information is incomplete, but we were always under the impression that Joseph Barron’s Unifine mill was one of three examples built by WSU (or perhaps WSC) in the mechanical engineering department. It was housed and operated, not in the large old Barron Mill building itself, but upstairs in a garage adjacent to Joseph’s house, a short distance away. We first purchased flour from him in about 1974, and continued until he ceased operation some time in the ‘90’s, and our trip to Oakesdale to stock up was always a special event.
A dignified and soft-spoken man, Joseph was a consummate miller, and took special pride in his selection of grain.
“Now this hard red is from Montana,” he might say, “12 1/2 percent protein.” At least a third generation miller (his grandfather established the historic old mill still standing) he possessed traditions and tools which were new to us.
He would present for inspection a sample of flour, on an elegant little palette thingy, after smoothing the surface with a little spatula, obviously made for the use.
I, clueless youngster, used to nod and look wise before handing it back, not one whit the wiser.
Having once pretended that I knew what I was looking at, I never quite had the courage to ask, but eventually I formed a theory that by compressing the surface of the flour into an almost reflective smoothness, he gave the customer the opportunity to note that there were no large particles or flakes of bran in the flour.
It really was uniformly fine, so fine that the wheat germ oil existed in small enough droplets not to spoil, so that its presence was not a limiting factor to the product’s shelf life.
Degermination, an extra step which would have added to the cost of the flour and removed nutritive quality, was hence unnecessary.
While we occasionally purchased pastry flour and a little corn meal, Joseph’s NutriGrain whole wheat flour was our staff of life.
For our purposes of home baking, it was by far the best product available in terms of flavor and rising, and we have never found anything as good since.
The Fairfield mill’s Unifine flour, readily available in Dissmores and other area markets, was a very consistent product, but we always preferred our bread made from Joseph’s flour, and the other competitors of the day (some of which have since improved greatly) were pretty grim.
We bought fifty pound bags, and whatever it was in the mid seventies (I seem to remember it well under ten bucks) it only ever got up to thirteen fifty or so.
When you entered the building a bell would ring in the house, and if Joseph didn’t appear it was find what you want, total it up and leave the money in the desk drawer.
I remember seeing a check in there for twelve hundred dollars one time from someone who sold flour on to food coops and health food stores.
Such a neighborly way of doing business, and I never heard that he had any problems doing it like that.
I remember when he sold the NutriGrain name. He was anything but a braggart, but he kind of enjoyed telling this one. He had taken the prudent step of registering his trademark, so when the breakfast food giant blew into town they soon found they were dealing with no hick. Their initial offer, which sounded like a lot to little me, failed to impress Mr. Barron, and they had to come back with something a great deal better, though I never heard that bottom line. As I say, no braggart he.
Such a good deal, and fun while it lasted. He’s been gone quite a while now, and we miss him still. We miss not only his mill and his wonderful flour, but also the fact that our local community was so well served and supplied by an individual from in our midst, who quietly embodied skills and traditions of great antiquity and of such direct importance to our very bread.
John Elwood,
Elberton
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