Red Lion Milling Co. / Con-Agra of Red Lion
York Co. | Pennsylvania | USA
Watersource: Non water-powered.
The Red Lion Milling Co. was granted its charter and organized on t Jan. 12, 1920. Simon A. Barshinger, Samuel A. Roseman, Clarence F. Barshinger, Charles E. Barshinger, & Samuel S. Laucks.
Simon A. Barshinger was actively engaged in the milling business for thirty-eight years, twenty eight as owner of a mill in York Twp. and ten years as his father's employee in Anstine's Mill, 1.5 miles east of Windsor Boro. prior to this new mills formation.
Simon's sons, Clarence & Charles, had been employed, since childhood, in Simon's York Twp. mill, which operated with 3 stands of rolls and a capacity of forty barrels of flour per day. This was later expanded to five stands with a 100 barrel productive capacity per day.
This equipment was moved to the Red Lion Mill in 1920, with an additional stand of rollers to bump production to 150 barrels per day. The 1920 production was approximately 250 hundred pound bags/24 hours; 1950 production jumped to 350 hundred pound bags/24 hours.
The 1920 mill structure consisted of a stone building in which the flour milling equipment operated, a frame structure used as a feed mill & warehouse, and a frame grain elevator of 50,000 bushel capacity. This brick structure beside the flourmill was probably part of the original feed mill.
In 1968, the Nebraska Consolidated Mills Co.(ConAgra)agreed to acquire the Red Lion Milling Co. The actual acquisition took place with an exchange of stock involving Charles E. Barshinger, President; Richard S. Barshinger, Vice President-Treasurer; and Harry I. Trout, Vice President. At this time, daily production was over 1100 hundred weight/day.
In 1980, the mill was capable of producing 2000 hundred weight/day with storage capacity of 280,000 bushels. Harry I. Trout retired in March, 1979 as manager of the Red Lion and York Flour Mills. His brother-in-law, Richard S. Barshinger, the last of the Barshinger family, remained active and was, in 1980, Eastern Regional Manager for Con-Agra and stationed at the Martins Creek plant north of Easton, Pa. The original stone mill housing the six stands of roller mills.
1979 was the 60th Anniverary of Con-Agra and turned out to be a banner year. Primary earnings/share increased 35% to a record 33.55 and sales reached an all time high of 5644.8 million. Return on year beginning common stockholders was 27.6%. In 1980, Con-Agra operated four flour mills in Pennsylvania. Its strategies and action plans for growth are strongly oriented toward basic food, proud to be a part of York County’s food industry.GPS: 39' 53.95N, 76' 35.97W 866 feet'/264 meters Red Lion Quadrangle