BLANTON GRAIN CO. CELEBRATES 20TH ANNIVERSARY Blanton Grain Company celebrated its 20th Anniversary of the founding of the company on April 26 and the local firm will be featured with pictures, in the current issue of Grain & Feed Journals, Cons. of Chicago, it was learned. The Company was originally founded as the Carrollton Feed Mills by L. F. Blanton on April 26, 1931 on the very spot where the new elevator now stands. It was founded in an old ironclad warehouse which had stood empty for a number of years. The total equipment consisted of a farm-type hammermill and a borrowed 1,000-lb batch mixer and one used truck. This beginning was made at the time that oats were worth from .08c to .10c, corn from .15c to .20c and wheat about .35c per bushel. Futures did not look very bright in anything, particularly for the farmer, dairyman and grain man, for a number of years thereafter. In September of 1934, the plant caught fire and nearly half of it was destroyed. The building was repaired, partly by shortening it 20 feet and later that winter a molasses mixer was added. In the summer of 1935 the Company purchased a lot of used machinery from a defunct cotton oil mill and installed a grain elevator to eliminate the use of grain scoops. At this time the firm also had purchased a small cleaner on which was mounted a motor. "We were commencing to mechanize," Walter Blanton said. We now had progressed to the point where by the fall of 1935, we had a new heavier, industrial type hammermill, a molasses mixer, a grain elevator, 3 grain bins, 2 new trucks, one used truck, a grain cleaner, a corn cutter and two new portable corn shellers. After having survived the drought of 1934, in which almost no crop of any kind was made, and teh fire of the same year, the bumper corn crop of 1935 was a welcome sight and from that time on, business prospered and volume steadily increased, Mr. Blanton said. In 1944, having worn out everything trying to care for their customers, the Company received permission from WPB to build a new plant. For this purpose the purchased a 10-acre tract, lying across the MKT track from the old plant and erected a new, iron-clad elevator of 30,000 bushel capacity and a 3-story concrete tile feed mill, fully equipping both with the necessary machinery to take care of the requirements at that time. During 1945-46 the firm handled as much as 10 cars of bulk grains per day and turned out as much as 4,000 bats of feed per day. At this point in their history the Company name was changed to Blanton Grain Company, with no change in ownership. In 1949 a corn shelling and grinding plant was constructed and the owners are planning an addition to this unit this summer.  They are also planning on installing new and more modern scales with dial-printer which will be installed in connection with the office. In regard to the new elevator which was illustrated in the grain magazine, it was built between Feb. 18 and May 25, 1950. The capacity is 220,000 bushels and the contractor was the Johnson-Sampson Construction Co. of Salina, Kans. It has sidings on both sides of the MKT tracks, one to server the old elevator and feed mill and one for this new storage ele3vator. The firm's truck fleet now consists of ten trucks, most of which are semi-trailers, single and tandem axle and heavy-duty tractors. The Carrollton Chronicle - Friday, May 4, 1951 Submitted by Edward Lynn Williams