The Edward T. Archibald House is a historic

farmhouse FarmHouse (FH) is a social Fraternities and sororities in North America, fraternity founded at the University of Missouri on April 15, 1905. It became a national organization in 1921. Today FarmHouse has 33 active chapters and four associate ch ...

Dundas Dundas may refer to: Places Australia * Dundas, New South Wales * Dundas, Queensland, a locality in the Somerset Region * Dundas, Tasmania * Dundas, Western Australia * Fort Dundas, a settlement in the Northern Territory 1824–1828 * Shire of ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The private home was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

(NRHP) on June 17, 1976. Built in the 1860s, the farmhouse is significant for its association with the prominent

miller A miller is a person who operates a Gristmill, mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Mill (grinding), Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surname ...

Edward T. Archibald, whose nearby Archibald Mill was an important mill in the history of Minnesota's

flour milling A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

industry.

Structure

The Edward T. Archibald House is located on the southwest corner of 2nd Street and Hamilton Street in Dundas. The structure is a two-story

wood frame Framing, in construction, is the fitting together of pieces to give a structure support and shape. Framing materials are usually wood, engineered wood, or structural steel. The alternative to framed construction is generally called ''mass wal ...

structure built in a simple clapboard-sided

Greek Revival architecture The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

with a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

roof. It originally had a

service wing Servants' quarters are those parts of a building, traditionally in a private house, which contain the domestic offices and staff accommodation. From the late 17th century until the early 20th century, they were a common feature in many large ...

, but only the main portion of the house remains.Marjorie A. Lund, National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form, January 6, 1976; copy accessed from Edward T. Archibald House file, State Historic Preservation Office in the Minnesota History Center. The property also once included a wood frame stable carriage barn, but it was later demolished and replaced by neighboring homes.

History and significance

The house was originally built by Lorenzo Hamblin in the 1860s. Edward T. Archibald purchased the property and lived there from 1867 until 1885. Archibald's work in milling garnered him attention in

trade publication A trade magazine, also called a trade journal or trade paper (colloquially or disparagingly a trade rag), is a magazine or newspaper whose target audience is people who work in a particular tradesman, trade or industry. The collective te ...

s of his time as "The man or firm who takes the leading place among flour makers of this country or of the world." Though there were settlers before them, brothers John Sidney and Edward T., along with their cousin George Archibald were responsible for founding Dundas in 1867; they named it after their hometown of

Dundas, Ontario : ''For the county in eastern Ontario see Dundas County, Ontario. For the upper tier county, see United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry.'' Dundas is a community and town in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It is nicknamed the ''Valley Town' ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. They built mills on both sides of the Cannon River.Archives
''Northfield News'', December 1, 2002, Accessed January 8, 2011.
, City of Dundas, Accessed January 8, 2011. Due to the great care that was taken in its manufacture,

flour Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many culture ...

from the Archibald Mill was recognized as the best in the

. "Dundas straight", as it became known, was sold for $1.00 or more per barrel in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

markets than the flours produced in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

. As a result, Minneapolis millers would come down to Dundas to study the Archibald Mill. A progressive miller, John Sidney imported three barrels of

Red Fife Red Fife (Triticum aestivum) wheat is a Canadian landrace descendent of Western Ukrainian (Galicia) wheat; it’s old local Galician name being “Halychanka”. It is a hard, bread wheat with straws of 0.9 to 1.5 metres tall. From the mid-1800s ...

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

from Canada; the Archibalds developed the seed into the No. 1 hard spring wheat that revolutionized farming in Minnesota. Before 1860, the wheat grown in the United States was soft

winter wheat Winter wheat (usually ''Triticum aestivum'') are strains of wheat that are planted in the autumn to germinate and develop into young plants that remain in the vegetative phase during the winter and resume growth in early spring. Classification ...

, but spring wheat was better suited to the soil. What initially prevented spring wheat from wide adoption was its characteristic flinty quality and high middlings content. Under the low grinding process used before 1870, the wheat's hardness caused the mash to heat and its thin brittle bran filled the flour with specks that discolored the flour. To fix this issue,

millstone Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones. Millstones come in pairs: a convex stationary base known as the ''bedstone'' and ...

s in their mills were run at a lower speed and were set higher so as to simply crack the kernel at the first grinding. It was then put through several grindings. The purpose was to make middlings the most valuable part of the product, as

gluten Gluten is a structural protein naturally found in certain cereal grains. Although "gluten" often only refers to wheat proteins, in medical literature it refers to the combination of prolamin and glutelin proteins naturally occurring in all grain ...

was found in the middlings and provided nutrition and gave bread its rising quality. The Archibalds' mills would later be among the first to adopt the middlings purifier, developed in Minneapolis, which allowed for large scale production of the higher gluten flour. Recognizing the need to rise to the competition of Minneapolis mills, Edward T. Archibald made further improvements. In 1879, he remodeled the mills to use rollers, also known as the "Hungarian milling process", which increased productivity while maintaining quality. The Archibald Mill was among the first to use the roller system in its entirety. At this time the mills were at their peak in notability and importance in the flour milling world. Edward T. Archibald moved to nearby

Northfield Northfield may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Northfield, Aberdeen, Scotland * Northfield, Edinburgh, Scotland * Northfield, Birmingham, England * Northfield (Kettering BC Ward), Northamptonshire, England United States * Northfield, Connec ...

in 1885. The mill complex burned down on

New Year's Eve In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve, also known as Old Year's Day or Saint Sylvester's Day in many countries, is the evening or the entire day of the last day of the year, on 31 December. The last day of the year is commonly referred to ...

in 1892 and was immediately rebuilt. It burned down again in 1914, was rebuilt and sold as the industry began to decline. The

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

s involved were sold to what is now

General Mills General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Archibald, Edward T., House Greek Revival houses in Minnesota Houses in Rice County, Minnesota Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota National Register of Historic Places in Rice County, Minnesota