Show flour mill mi pr OS P montezuma valley cortez one of montezuma valleys Val leya most abundant crops Is solely responsible res ns for the steady growth of o one oe e e the principal indu industries 8 in cortez te Z from fro m the fertile fields field 8 of the valle valley y comes grain iraln primarily wheat to the wark war milling co grains particularly wheat must mus be milled processed into quickly usable form such su ch as flour and in the wark milling co of cortez corte z the Monte montezuma zurna valley possesses the second largest independent flour mill in the state of Colo colorado irad and nd one 1 of I the largest and most modern in the west with a capacity of 1000 bushels a day the wark mill last year zear processed le d a whopping g 2 00 0 bushels S of ripe golden M montezuma ont e zu m a valley grain and to illustrate the vastly increasing growth of the milling industry in the valley this figure represents between 35 to 40 percent more production than in 1953 we have been growing steadily year after year tom toni wark sec see detary treasurer and general manager of the company says and we think well keep growing with the community and the area besides milling hour flour the wark mill also does custom grinding and nd feed mixing for the hundreds t farmers and stockmen stoc kmen in the broad and lovely montezuma valley it also mills all other small grains rains such as corn com and barley which are grown in varying quantities in the region storage capacity of the huge new mill at no market st tw to cortez totals bushels ant and during the height of the grain harvest in the valley the mills nine em emp emig loyes lg work 0 ll 24 hourie a day t three h r e to a shift h lf to handle th the h heavy e vy d demand e mand for its facilities aluch of 0 t the hundreds of thousands of bushels of wheat brought into the mill by western colorado wheat growers Is processed into several brands of flour which are sold throughout the west under brand names of the wark mill Loc locally the wark mill markets locally allT an axce excellent lent hard bard wheat family type flour under the brand name of valley queen available in nearly every retail food store in the area products Pro products ducis of ft th cortez mill are shipped ed to other parts of colorado t to 0 vim utah arizona and new mexico a and nd sometimes as far away as california A good portion of the po production goes to the ute and navajo indians on reservations near cortex cortez and to indian trading posts where it is baked into bread the old tom wark a tall bespectacled young min man with an engaging smile points out that some 95 percent of the mills production goes out of the state of colorado and in turn out ot of state sales result in a large amount of money being returned to cortez for channeling channel mg into the local econ economy the wark mill Is the only one of its kind in the four corners comers area the nearest dearest outside mill being a smaller operation in bayfield IS 15 miles east of durango the present mill is a completely modern modem mill in every respect re s hect with the latest type of milling equipment new bruil buildings dings and up to dat date e milling procedures the modern modem mill Is the happy result of a disaster on the night of dec 28 1949 a raging fire leveled the original wark mill de destroying all the equipment a considerable siders sid stroKing erable le quantity of stored grain and feeds the estimated loss was iii the barks president W C wark vice president T W wark and young torn tom within eight months had bad rebuilt the mill on the site of the destroyed structure the new mill was completed in time to receive the late summer and fall fail harvst since then it has been operating steadily the barks W C and T W first moved to the montezuma Monte zunA valley in 1910 tom was born in 1921 at cortez and has lived in the community all of his life in 1926 the two elder barks decided they wanted to go into the milling business as tom explains it now and so they started the mill although they enow know anything about it from the first the mill which amed a need in the valley prospered it weathered competition from another but smaller mill at cortez went through the depression era er and world war U H without serious trouble until the fire in 1949 since the fire the mill has grown steadily and the barks are confident it will continue to grow if the montezuma valley has a future tom wark epla explains then our ou mill has a future too and were sure the valley has a brilliant future |