Mill City Museum in Minneapolis, Hennepin County, United States | Museum

Welcome to Mill City Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. An attraction for all ages, Mill City Museum chronicles the flour milling industry that dominated world flour production for roughly a half-century and fueled the growth of Minneapolis,Minnesota recognized across the nation and around the world as ?Mill City.?
Built within the ruins of a National Historic Landmark ? the Washburn A Mill ? the Museum provides a multi-sensory, interactive journey. The story of flour milling ? and its impact on Minneapolis, the nation and the world ? comes to life through the eight-story Flour Tower and other hands-on exhibits.
Beginning in 1880 and for 50 years thereafter, Minneapolis was known as the ?Flour Milling Capital of the World.? At the industry?s peak, the Washburn A Mill was the most technologically advanced and the largest in the world. At peak production, it ground enough flour to make 12 million loaves of bread in a day.
The city grew up around the mills, which received grain via rail lines stretching across the Northern Plains grain belt into the Dakotas and Canada. Trains also carried the milled flour to Duluth and to eastern U.S. destinations both for export and domestic distribution. In 1870, the city?s population was 13,000. Twenty years later it had grown to nearly 165,000.
After World War I the milling industry in Minneapolis began to decline. As the industry moved out of Minneapolis, the old mills fell into disuse. The Washburn A Mill closed in 1965. In 1991 the mill was nearly destroyed by fire.
Working through the Minneapolis Community Development Agency, the city cleaned up the rubble and fortified the charred walls of the mill in the late 1990s. Shortly thereafter, the Minnesota Historical Society announced plans to develop Mill City Museum.