The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1918-10-31

first load of grain was bought by the
farmers of Kimball. In the meantime
the grain buyers in Kimball had raised
the price something unheard of before
in the town of Kimball. Of course
the farmers had to pay the same price
in order to secure grain. About this
time our troubles began. Our first
manager stayed with us just two
months, saying that life was too short
to waste in such an old shack. An
other man was hired when he came
and looked over the house he would
only stay until we could secure an
Their man and no longer Finally one
of our farmers, Mr.. Math Seppe, south
of Kimball, offered to do the buying
for us. Then things went along pretty
well and in or months we had
bought between 10000 and $4,000
bushels of grain. During this time
the question was always before us OF
building a new house. A few meet
ings were held and the question was
discussde pro and con. Finally at a
stock holders meeting it was decided
to vote on the building question. The
result of this vote was unanimous II
we could raise cash enough for build
ing.
In the mean time more trouble was
brewing. Notice was sent to the diff
ferent subscribers to pay in their sub
scriptions but about u of our share
holders did not care to pay up and no
one was forced to so after subscrip-
lions were either paid or refused we
had in all forty-one paid up subscrib-
ers for a total of $4,100. Fifteen
hundred dollars of which we paid
down on the house we bought and
started business on the other twenty
six hundred. Then, as luck would
have it, the price on grain increased
so fast during the winter of 1917 and
1918 that we had on the seventy
thousand bushels a profit of $4,18O
little over 100 per cent on our in
vestment.
Still we were not satisfied as
through the old house which we had
bought we could not possibly handle
large crop of grain. So in January
or February of 1918 we got in touch
with Mr.. Charles Eckerle of Mime
apolis who makes business of help
ing farmers organize farmers eleva-
tors, creameries, etc. Mr.. Eckerles is
known as community builder and
any community wishing to organize
a cooperative business in any town
large or small can depend on Mr.
Eckerle putting their movement
across. Mr.. Eckerle set day to
meet the board of directors of Kim
ball and it was decided to have a
boosters meeting in the town hall. AT
this meeting Mr.. Eckerle gave talk
on cooperation. The meeting was a
grand success as the business men OF
Kimball and farmers together turned
out for one of the largest meetings
ever held at Kimball. The boosters
meeting put new life in the COM
munity. In a few weeks Mr.. Eckerle
and the board Of directors canvassed
the neighborhood and sold new shares
of stock amount to about $4,000. In
the spring of 1918 contract was let
to Hoge & Company of Minneapolis
to build new and up-to-date elevator
on the site of the old warehouse
Plans for this elevator called for a
sixteen bin house with thirty thous-
and bushel capacity equipped with the
newest type of dump scales, three
electric motors, automatic weighing
out scale, re-cleaners, etc. On Aug
IL, 1918 we started to buy grain in
the new house and up to Oct. 1, 1915
we had handled $500 bushels OF
wheat, 17,465 bushels Of oats, 5,571
bushels of rye, 4,641 bushels of barley
and 1,236 bushels of flax making a