Denver Flour Mills – Colorado Milling and Elevator Company (CM&E)
Mullen went on to create the Colorado Milling and Elevator Company (CM&E) which by 1889 and owned four mills in Colorado.
According to the “Rio Grande Freight Traffic Guide” of 1951 (Tramway Press, 1983) the Hungarian Flour Mills and the Denver Flour Mills were one of the same and in 1951 had an office and elevator at 1441 7th Street, Denver and was serviced by D&RGW & CRI&P. There were also branch elevators at 3750 Wynkoop Street (UP) and West 29th & Jason Streets (AT&SF & C&S).
William Reich’s very helpful book “Colorado Industries” (Johnson Books, 2008) credits John K. Mullen, a young Irish immigrant from New York (where he had worked in a flour mill from the age of 14), as being the first person to bring the Hungarian roller process of gradual reduction of wheat to flour to Denver. In 1883 he built the Hungarian Milling and Elevator Company Mill.
Hungarian Flour
I am going to give you a little history about Hungarian Flour. Years ago I worked for a company called Denver Flour Mills where High Altitude Hungarian Flour was milled. The gentleman who founded Denver Flour Mills was from Hungary. He began milling a flour from wheat grown in the high altitudes, Colorado, Montana, and Utah. The reason he called his flour Hungarian is he milled the flour by the “stone ground method” just as he had in Hungary.
In the late 60’s Denver Flour Mills was bought out by Great Western Sugar Company at which time I, among others, was laid off. I am not sure when GW Sugar Company sold the flour portion of the merged company, but now Hungarian Flour is now milled in Nebraska by a company called ConAgra Mills. www.conagramills.com. The point being you could use any high grade flour, either unbleached, bleached, or whole wheat flour and you should do fine with your recipe. The only real speciality about Hungarian flour is that it is milled from hard wheat that is grown in the higher altitudes, also know as winter wheat. Winter wheat is planted in the late summer and is grown all winter and harvested in June through July. I hope this information helps and as I said, any good quality flour should do just fine.
By jacsisk on December 20, 2007.