GRAIN TERMINAL ASSOCIATION:

The Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association (GTA or FUGTA), a cooperative grain marketing organization of Midwestern farmers, began operations on June 1, 1938. Its origins, however, go back much farther into the nineteenth century with farmers' rebellions against low prices, mis-grading of grain, false weights, buyer collaboration, and excessive dockage and transportation costs, which resulted in their first attempts at cooperative action. By 1916 many farmers believed they were losing an estimated $55 Million per year because of inequities in the marketing business. To combat these perceived inequities, a group of them organized the Equity Cooperative Exchange in 1908 to market their grain. The Equity and other small farmer-run cooperatives faced widespread opposition from railroads, banks, grain companies, and many city newspapers. The Equity formed the St. Paul Grain Exchange in 1914 (they were not allowed to trade on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange) and built their own elevator on the Mississippi River in St. Paul. In the 1920s the Equity was forced into receivership and in 1926 the Farmers Union Terminal Association (FUTA) was formed to carry on the farmers' grain cooperative movement. This association worked to enact uniform inspection regulations and honest weighing practices at both local and terminal elevators. In the 1930s FUTA became affiliated with the quasi-governmental Farmers National Grain Corporation. In 1938 this corporation ceased operations and GTA took its place, eventually growing into one of the largest grain marketing and processing cooperatives in the world.

On its first day of business, the new co-op had one terminal elevator in St. Paul and branch offices in Duluth, Minnesota and Great Falls, Montana. Operating capital consisted of a $30,000 loan from the Farmers Union Central Exchange and slightly over one million dollars in credit from the federal Farm Credit Administration. Myron William (Bill) Thatcher, who had been a legislative lobbyist for the Farmers National Grain Corporation in Washington, D.C., in the early 1930s, was named GTA's general manager. Thatcher, an experienced accountant who had helped successfully liquidate the Equity Cooperative Exchange, led GTA for the next thirty years.

The growth of GTA between 1938 and 1983 was remarkable and only some highlights of its history can be presented here. In 1941 GTA began construction of its Superior, Wisconsin terminal, which by 1982 had expanded its capacity to 18.5 million bushels making it the largest inland export elevator in the nation. Terminal construction in Shelby and Lewiston, Montana and publication of the GTA Digest also began in 1941. In 1942 the Amber Mill in Rush City, Minnesota was acquired and began milling durum wheat into semolina for pasta products. Most of the country's durum wheat was raised by GTA members in North Dakota. Co-op grain marketing reached into 100 additional communities in 1943 when GTA bought the St. Anthony and Dakota and Winter-Truesdell-Diercks elevator lines. Consequently, the GTA elevator line division was started with 108 stations, as well as some lumberyards that became the foundation of the Great Plains Supply Company. In 1943 GTA started its own daily radio program, which aired until 1968. 1943 also saw the establishment of The Terminal Agency, Inc. which offered insurance coverage for GTA-affiliated elevators and personnel. The post-World War II era saw GTA make international news through its contribution of 16 million of the 80 million bushels provided by the United States in the Mercy Wheat Campaign for war-ravaged Europe. By skillfully trading in the flax market, GTA was able to finance construction of a new corporate headquarters in St. Paul at the corner of Larpenteur and Snelling Avenues. The "House that Flax Built" opened in January 1947. In February 1947 the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously that GTA had the right to buy its own (its members') grain. A negative vote might have meant an end for the cooperative movement after years of court challenges by opponents.

In 1949 GTA built a terminal in Great Falls and purchased the Great Northern terminal in Minneapolis and the Spencer-Kellogg terminal in Superior. In 1954 GTA released its family farm survey, which showed that many farmers were actually working for pennies per hour and that low crop prices and high operating costs were forcing many farmers off land their families had owned for generations. In 1960 GTA bought the Honeymead Soybean processing plant and the Archer-Daniels-Midland elevator line in southern Minnesota. In 1963, along with two other cooperatives, GTA bought a river terminal in St. Louis, establishing the St. Louis Grain Corporation. In 1965 the food processing line was expanded with the acquisition of the Froedtert Malt Corporation of Milwaukee.

Bill Thatcher, GTA general manager since its founding, retired in May 1968 at the age of 85. For years his contacts and friendships with politicians such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Henry A. Wallace, Hubert Humphrey, and Milton R. Young helped promote GTA and the concept of parity prices for farmers. Upon Thatcher's retirement, B. J. (Barney) Malusky became president and general manager of the Association. GTA continued to expand with a new feed mill in Owatonna (1970), a barge-loading facility in Winona (1975), and a branch office in Portland, Oregon (1975). In 1977 GTA acquired Holsum Foods and sold nearly one million bushels of wheat to Taiwan. In 1981 GTA set a new grain-handling record of 459 million bushels. The next year GTA opened a river terminal in Savage, Minnesota; Malusky retired; and Allen D. Hansen was elected president and chief executive officer. In 1983 GTA and North Pacific Grain Growers, Inc., a cooperative established in the Pacific Northwest in 1929, merged to form Harvest States Cooperatives. Fifteen years later, in June 1998, Cenex (the old Farmers Union Central Exchange of South St. Paul, Minnesota) and Harvest States merged to form a new cooperative called Cenex Harvest States Cooperatives.

Return to top

The collection was acquired from two sources: the family of GTA general manager Bill Thatcher and Cenex Harvest States Cooperatives. Miscellaneous corporate records, consisting of articles of incorporation and bylaws, minutes, resolutions, contracts, and correspondence of the board of directors comprise the first of seven series of records. The memoranda to the board of directors date primarily from 1938 to 1948.

The second series consists of records relating to the annual stockholders or membership meeting, usually held each December in St. Paul. Included are convention programs, speeches by GTA officials and prominent politicians, committee reports, the annual report, transcripts, and news clippings. Not all items are found for each year, and 1955 and 1958 are missing entirely. Meetings containing verbatim transcripts are noted in the Detailed Description that follows. The third series is correspondence of GTA general manager Bill Thatcher. This series is not complete, but it gives a good overview of Thatcher's and GTA's activities during his tenure.

The next series is a set of subject files that forms the bulk of the collection. Included in this series are Professor Philip D. Jordan's unpublished manuscript on the history of the GTA (ca. 1956), as well as some material on the Farmers National Grain Corporation and the Farmers Union Terminal Association. Files on Bill Thatcher include biographical information, employment contracts, speeches and other statements, and miscellaneous correspondence relating to the writing of his biography. GTA "Food for Freedom" radio broadcasts (1943-1946) were primarily delivered by GTA public relations director Gordon Roth, but addresses by Thatcher and others also appear in these scripts. Information about internal GTA feuds (the O'Connor feud of the early 1940s) and external threats to GTA and the cooperative movement (see the Ray Chase material) also form an important part of this series. Material concerning the Conference on Economic Progress, as well as the GTA farm survey of 1955, are also present.

The final three series are published items, audio recordings, and photographs. The published items (1923-1991) include mostly pamphlets and brochures printed by GTA for distribution to farmers, largely spreading the word about GTA or fighting charges by opponents. Some pamphlets tout the new GTA headquarters (1947) and later pamphlets relate some of the history of GTA. Several Harvest States Cooperatives pamphlets round out this series. The cassette tapes are largely from the early 1970s when various people started to interview Bill Thatcher (then in his late 80s) in preparation for a biography or a book on the history of the Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association. The audio recordings date from the 1950s and include speeches by Thatcher at various GTA gatherings, as well as Dwight D. Eisenhower's farm speech delivered at Kasson, Minnesota on September 6, 1952. The photographs are mostly black and white, 8 x 10 inch prints of the GTA board of directors, Thatcher, and various congressmen.

Return to top

These records are organized into the following sections:

Return to top

Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Grain Terminal Association Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 14,339; 15,632; 16,185

Processing Information:

Processed by: Richard W. Arpi, August 2000; Alex Kent, December 2009

Catalog ID number: 990017145270104294

Return to top

Return to top

Files of the annual membership meeting, held usually in December in St. Paul, are a good source of information on the year-to-year activities of the cooperative. Found in these files are convention programs, speeches of GTA officials and prominent politicians, committee reports, clippings, the published annual report, and verbatim transcripts. Not every year contains all these items and only a few years contain transcripts (noted in the file list below). Note that files from 1955 and 1958 are missing.

Return to top

Return to top

Alphabetically arranged subject files relating to all functions and activities of GTA, including some important moments in its history, information on predecessor cooperatives, and speeches of and biographical material on GTA general manager Bill Thatcher. Several folders of miscellaneous material on agriculture are filed at the end of this series.

Return to top

Largely brochures and pamphlets published by GTA and its successor Harvest States Cooperatives. After the first two items (GTA radio scripts and a newsletter), items are filed in chronological order by date published.

Return to top

Return to top

Return to top

Annual reports, newsletters, periodicals and other publications of the Grain Terminal Association and Harvest States Cooperatives are in the Minnesota Historical Society library.

The records of the Farmers Union Central Exchange (Cenex) are in the Minnesota Historical Society manuscript collections.

Papers of Robert Handschin, research director for the Grain Terminal Association, are in the Minnesota Historical Society manuscript collections.

Return to top

This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Agricultural prices -- Midwestern states.

Agricultural subsidies -- Midwestern states.

Agricultural surveys -- North Dakota.

Agriculture and politics -- Midwestern states.

Agriculture -- Economic aspects -- Midwestern states.

Cooperative marketing of farm produce -- Midwestern states.

Grain cooperative marketing -- Midwestern states.

Grain elevators, Cooperative -- Midwestern states.

Persons:

Andreas, Dwayne O., 1918-2016.

Andreas, Lowell H.

Baldwin, Calvin Benham, 1902-1975, author.

Bean, Louis Hyman, 1896-, author.

Chase, Ray P. (Ray Park), 1880-1948, author.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969, author.

Freeman, Orville L., author.

Humphrey, Hubert H. (Hubert Horatio), 1911-1978, author.

Jordan, Philip D. (Philip Dillon), 1903-1980, author.

Keyserling, Leon Hirsch, author.

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945, author.

Thatcher, M. W. (Myron William), 1883-1976, author.

Wallace, Henry Agard, 1888-1965, author.

Young, Milton Ruben, 1897-1983, author.

Organizations:

Commodity Credit Corporation.

Conference on Economic Progress (U.S.).

Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Farmers National Grain Corporation.

Farmers Union Terminal Association (Minn.).

Grain Terminal Foundation.

Great Lakes Supply Company.

Harvest States Cooperatives (Minn.).

Honeymead Products Company.

National Federation of Grain Cooperatives.

Republican Party (United States : 1854- ).

Terminal Agency, inc.

United States. Department of Agriculture.

Types of Documentation:

Audiotapes.

Photographs.

Radio scripts.

Return to top