c. 1930s Letz Model 430 Type A Feed Grinder

 This feed grinder, sometimes called a buhr mill or grinding mill, was made by the Letz Manufacturing Company in Crown Point, Indiana. Looking around this part of the exhibit, you will quickly notice this is one of four Letz feed grinders.
 The Letz Manufacturing Company had a long history before the company produced Stuhr Museum's feed grinders. The company was founded by Louis Letz, a German immigrant to the United States. Louis, the son of a German farm machinery builder in Steinbach, Hallenberg, Germany, first settled with his wife and three young children in Chicago, Illinois. Growing weary of the big city, Louis and his family moved to Crown Point, Indiana, in 1881, where he started the Crown Point Manufacturing Company. He soon began manufacturing his first feed mill.
 Spurred on by supporters, Letz entered his mills into several competitions, including the 1890 Paris Fair, the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. He garnered awards and acclaim at these events, and his company slowly grew. Louis died in 1908, but his children, George, John, Otto, William, Ludwig, Eva, and Carol continued the business. George, John, and William published several patents for feed grinders and similar machinery during the 1910s to 1930s. The company closed it doors in 1965, after eight decades in the feed grinder business.

From The Country Gentleman, vol. LXXXIII,
no. 50 (December 14, 1918).

 Feed grinders first came on the scene by the 1860s, although many farmers did not have a horse treadmill to power them. By the early 1900s, however, as more and more farmers purchased not just horse treadmills but early gas engines like the examples here at Stuhr Museum, the feed grinder became very popular. The Letz Manufacturing Company was one of many companies developing very effective mills for grinding a wide variety of plants into feed. The four Letz grinders here at Stuhr Museum show part of the offerings farmers had to choose from as they considered how they were going to feed their cattle and pigs in the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1930s, the hammermill gradually replaced the feed grinder, or buhr mill, as the tool for preparing animal feed.

 As you can see, this feed grinder has a conveyor belt which made loading corn cobs into the machine much easier. A farmer or hired hand needed only to shovel the corn onto the conveyor and let the belt take it from there. Unlike the other feed grinders in this exhibit, this Model 430 also has an elevator which made it possible to load the finely ground feed into a bin for storage, or onto a truck for transport.
 You can see a video of a Letz Model 110 in action, powered by a Farmall tractor and used to grind up whole corn cobs, by clicking or touching here. You can view another video of another Letz feed grinder in action, powered by a 1940s John Deere engine, by clicking or touching here.