Hanford Insider

Hanford Insider: The 136 Year Legacy of Lacey Milling

• Rob Bentley

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Rob returns with updates on the traffic signal at 10th & Lacey as well as downtown stop signs and the new flashing stop sign at 13th & Fargo after a fatal accident last month. The city announces a hefty grant destined to sprinkle a bit of magic along the China Alley corridor from the Amtrak station to 10th Ave. And, a shoutout to our local firefighters who are rolling up their sleeves to assist Los Angeles — a perfect moment to rally support for the Red Cross. 

Next, we unravel the tapestry of the Lacey family’s legacy in Hanford, spotlighting Horatio Gregory Lacey’s electrifying influence that set the town on a trajectory of growth. The Lacey family opens their hearts, sharing cherished traditions from Christmas gatherings at Grandma Beth’s to the story behind Lacey Boulevard's name. Through personal anecdotes and historical reflections, we paint a vivid picture of their lasting impact, sealing the chapter with an engaging tête-a-tête with the Lacey family themselves. Their narratives of community spirit and familial bonds offer a warm embrace of nostalgia and recognition.

Our journey through Lacey Milling doesn’t just stop at history; it leaps into pop culture! Imagine the mill's unexpected transformation into a film set for a 1989 werewolf flick. But it’s not all glitz and glam; we bear witness to the mill’s closure in 2023 amidst challenges like drought and dwindling wheat. Yet, there's a silver lining as we discuss preserving this slice of history for future generations. We wrap up with exciting updates from Hanford’s sports scene, giving you the play-by-play on our basketball and soccer teams’ latest feats. Tune in for a blend of rich history, community highlights, and sports thrills that make Hanford the vibrant town we love.

You can find the Hanford Insider at www.hanfordinsider.com and on social media at @hanfordinsider
Thank you for supporting the show!

Speaker 1:

On this episode of the Hanford Insider, rob will have the much-anticipated interview with the Lacey Milling family. You'll get an update of Hanford news and the community calendar. Then I'll be back later with your sports report.

Speaker 2:

This is the Hanford Insider, the podcast where we dive into what makes our community tick, from local stories and hidden gems to conversations with people shaping our neighborhood. We're here to celebrate, explore and connect. I'm your host, rob Bentley. Whether you're new to Hanford or longtime local, this is your source for everything happening in our town, from events and news to unique conversations with people who make Hanford what it is. Thanks for tuning in. Let's jump right into this week's community news.

Speaker 2:

The Hanford City Council meeting scheduled for last Tuesday was canceled. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, january 21st. It was great to see Hanford Police Department Dispatch Supervisor Richard Johnson get some well-deserved recognition as he retires after a 38-year career in law enforcement. Chief Huddleston says throughout his career Richard has been a dedicated public servant, someone who always put the safety and well-being of others first. Congratulations on your retirement, richard.

Speaker 2:

I've had a number of you ask me if I knew when the traffic light at 10th and Lacey would be repaired. If you remember, there was a traffic accident there a few months back and the pole in the northwest corner was heavily damaged. After discussion with Public Works Director Russ Sperling, I was informed that the replacement pole was ordered right away, but apparently poles of this type are not readily available and a new one should be arriving in the next few weeks. Then the Public Works Department will work with a contractor to schedule installation as soon as possible. That said, it's probably going to be another month or so before they're up and running again, so be careful. While I had Mr Sperling's ear, I also confirmed that the reason the downtown traffic signals are being replaced with four-way stops is that a traffic study was conducted and the intersections no longer warrant control with a signal light. Study was conducted and the intersections no longer warrant control with a signal light. If you recall, the old lights began to fail and parts were no longer available for those types of signals either, and since by 2023 standards set by the state, the intersections were no longer eligible for signal lights. So what we have is four-way stops at 7th and Harris, dowdy, irwin and Reddington. I go downtown quite a bit and I really like being able to back out of parking spaces and not having to wait five minutes just to make a left turn. We just have to adjust and pay attention. Speaking of stop signs, it was also great to see the new flashing stop signs that have been installed at the intersection of 13th and Fargo. That's where a drunk driver ran a stop sign and killed Kelly Rivera back in December. Hopefully the county will be putting some more of these types of lights up in the future.

Speaker 2:

Winter Wonderland and the Hanford Civic Auditorium Park wrapped up on Sunday. I look forward to having Brad Albert on the show in the future to give us a recap of this year's event. This is the first year that no sessions were canceled due to rain. Even though I can't ice skate anymore, I did visit several times and I thought the drone shows were a nice addition to this year's event. The City of Hanford announced Friday that they have received a $15.5 million grant award from the US Department of Transportation's RAISE program. The grant will pay for substantial improvements from the Amtrak station east all the way to 10th Avenue along the China Alley corridor, including roadway and intersection safety improvements, ada upgrades, bus stop improvements, wayfinding, signage, micromobility amenities, lighting, stormwater drain improvements, electrical vehicle charging stations and electronic information displays. You can find out more on the city website at hanfordcity and on the city's Facebook page. Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize members of our local firefighting agencies who have been deployed to the Los Angeles area to help them during this difficult time. Please lift all of the affected families and public safety officers up in prayer To ensure people that have the help that they need. The Red Cross depends on public support. Visit redcrossorg to donate today.

Speaker 2:

Here's some things coming up on our community calendar. The Kings County Animal Center will be holding a pet pantry drive on Friday, january 17th from 9.30 am to 10.30 am. Donations of pet food and supplies are always welcome. Check their social media pages for more dates. On Friday January 17th, the Hassan Sabetian exhibition opens at the King's Arts Center. Check their website for hours and more information at kingsartscenterorg. On Saturday January 18th, the Children's Storybook Garden and Museum is hosting a Happy New Years party from 10 am to 1 pm. It's a free event for children who dress up in Disney costumes. There'll be games, tours, a snack bar and plenty of fun. For more information, visit childrenstorybookgardenorg.

Speaker 2:

The Woodstackers Dance Club is offering 12 weeks of square dancing lessons at the Hanford Square 8s Hall beginning Tuesday February 4th. Classes are $5 a person or $50 for all 12 weeks. It's super family friendly. For more information, call Sarah Wallace at 559-358-8159. The Sierra Pacific High School baseball team is holding a cornhole tournament at the Hanford Fraternal Hall on Saturday, february 1st at noon. For more information, email info at sincowbaggerscom. The Hanford Rotary Crab Feed is coming up on Saturday, february 1st in the Hanford Civic Auditorium. Email rotaryclubhanford at gmailcom for tickets. If you have an event coming up and you'd like some help getting the word out, let's work together. Send your information to hanfordinsider at gmailcom. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a complete calendar of events.

Speaker 2:

Well, happy 2025. It's such an awesome pleasure to be here with the Lacey Milling family. This interview has been anticipated for over a year and a half since I've been doing this show and I'm so proud to be here with the members of the family. With me I have Tim Lacey, eric Lindrum, holly Lindrum, lynn Lindrum, scott Lindrum and our historian, michael Simas. Welcome to the show. Everybody Welcome and thank you. Thanks so much. So, tim, let's start with you. The Lacey Milling family has a long, deep history in Hanford with the milling plant, and can you give us a little bit about the history of the Lacey Milling family and the flour mill in Hanford?

Speaker 3:

1887, I believe Correct, and you know it's with HG being the founder and ran the company until his passing in 1917. And that's when Orin Mell took over. But he was an innovator and he was a community giant. He helped and did everything he could and just through the generations a couple of world wars, everything, depression we've continued to exist and it's always been a family owned and run business and so many people have been employed there over the years and have benefited and I guess we're pretty proud of that the years and have benefited and I guess we're pretty proud of that.

Speaker 2:

So Lacey Milling the origins of Lacey Milling are actually older than the city of Hanford, correct? Yeah, hanford was incorporated in 1891, and it was in 1890 that Horatio G Lacey and his two sons bought the flour mill and changed the name to the HG Lacey Company. Prior to that it was owned by a milling plant from Visalia, and when Horatio was in Kansas he came out to Visalia and he was working for this milling company and they asked him to head up the plant in Hanford. So that's a pretty interesting side note there. Michael, one of the big things that comes into the history of the Lacey milling is the contribution of the power supply to the city of Hanford and how Horatio was responsible. And we can actually see that plant in action today.

Speaker 5:

Right next to the plant, right west of the plant, you'll see a Southern California Edison substation which seems kind of out of the place when you look at it in terms of how the Hanford has been developed. And you would have to understand that it was Mr Lacey that brought power, electrical power, to the city of Hanford back. I don't know the exact date, but it was an important moment in Hanford's growth to have electrical power brought to it Again. I tell people HG Lacey was the guy that brought power. That's why the substation's here.

Speaker 2:

And that's why we have Southern California Edison and not PG&E, because the company that actually had it originally was the Mount Whitney Power Company of Icelia and it was acquired by Edison in 1920. So that's what I had read on that. Obviously, it's a huge family history from generation to generation. Tim, do you want to talk about the generational history of this?

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, of course it was begun by HG Lacey, Horatio Gregory Lacey, and when he passed in 1917, his son took over control mail. Then it passed on to our grandfather, Earl Lacey, and then my dad and our grandma, Beth, who's right here in this picture. It's just been enduring and there's quite a story there. If you've got about a month, we can continue.

Speaker 2:

Well, we may not have a month on the show, but you do have a book that's been put out about the Lacey-Milling history.

Speaker 4:

I understand that this was published pre-COVID around 2020 or so 2019?. We did a couple versions, but the last one was done in 2016.

Speaker 3:

Yes, okay, scott.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that Cousin Scott did so much research on putting this together. It's just amazing. Yeah, it is, I've seen it and it definitely tells the story that maybe we don't have the time for today, but I'd like to hear some of the personal stories. I know that, being a family business, a lot of you have memories of spending time all waking hours and maybe some not so awake hours there with family and friends. Let's hear some of the stories that you might remember about being together at the mill.

Speaker 6:

What I remember most was Grandma Beth always welcoming us after school. After school, before I'd go to Generation Gap to work, which my mom owned, we'd stop by Lacey Milling a couple of my friends and I and during the winter she always had a fire going and during Christmas time everybody brought cookies and goodies and anything Christmas. It was decorated so special. So I have fond memories of going there after school and visiting my grandmother at Christmas time. And my dad loved to. Chuck Glendrum loved to host holiday parties and most of our parties we had at the Dynasty downstairs in the banquet room, and my dad got a big kick of going and buying all kinds of presents for men and women and children and then he would have all the employees pick a number and they always got the biggest kick out of getting to go up and pick out a gift and there was no exchanging, stealing of the gifts. You got your gift and he would always try to buy something local, like something from yeah, it was probably Robert's Jewelers and then Candice and Company, and that was a lot of fun. He loved, and so did my mom, hosting parties and so did my Grandma Beth when she was alive. I feel like a lot of our Christmas traditions in my family have come from my Grandma, beth Lacey, when she lived on Water Street. She had an extremely high ceiling and we used to live in the Bay Area and when we would come down for Christmas the Hanford Volunteer Fire Department would actually put up her Christmas tree in her living room, because that's how big the tree was and it just seemed so magical.

Speaker 6:

I used to love to come to Hanford as a kid. We'd come on the train and it was just fun to always visit the mill and catch up with everything down there. And I do remember in high school I graduated in 1974, and I believe it was 1972, we built our class float in one of the shop buildings and that was a lot, a lot of fun. We had a lot of people, a lot of people that weren't in our class, that wanted to come. There was probably some beer snuck in, you know, back in the day, but we really did have a good time and I just have so many fond memories of the mill. I just it's a treasure and very proud to know that Lacey Boulevard was named after our grandfather and my great grandfather donated the land to Lacey Park. So my kids have gone to games at Lacey Park, played at Lacey Park, so I'm very proud of our family history.

Speaker 2:

Definitely, definitely. Well, in my conversations with Michael, we actually discussed the name of Lacey Boulevard, and we have an interesting story to share with you that you may or may not have heard, but if you haven't heard it, you need to hear this story about why Lacey Boulevard is named Lacey Boulevard.

Speaker 5:

There was a contest that was held here in Hanford and the person who won the contest was going to get the opportunity to name that road. And the person that won it was a man by the name of Lemon. He had a it was a very large Portuguese farming operation in the Lemoore area and he was so humbled by the fact that he had the opportunity to name that road that he said well, we have to name it after Mr Lacey, because he's the one that actually made the town and our community what it is and that's why it was named Lacey Boulevard.

Speaker 6:

Well, it's not necessarily everywhere that you are. That's really cool.

Speaker 2:

Great, okay, and how about you, scott, oh?

Speaker 4:

I can remember what Holly was talking about on Beth's Christmas tree. I remember hearing the story that because she got such a big one, it was always somewhat of a competition between her and Bank of America to see who could get the largest tree or who could get it first.

Speaker 7:

You know this business has been in five generations of the family now. That is to say it was run by five generations of the family who did the actual important work keeping this business alive through the 136 years it was in operation. You know myself and my older sister, christina, were part of what I guess you could call maybe the 5.5th generation. You know we never ran the mill but we did work little odd jobs there in high school and college I believe Chris did a little bit of. She worked briefly in like the secretary's role for a bit, dad.

Speaker 4:

Mostly history stuff. I mean, obviously she was the one who helped me put the book together.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, and then, in my case, you know, I remember, you know, growing up with it as a kid, you know no-transcript, and that was in addition to the old, like red and blue, like antique candy machine, like gumball machine, yeah, where you could get candy out of that. And then of course, I would, would go down to Papa's office at the far end. My grandfather, chuck, and he also had little something, little goodies to give us. So you know, three different stops, almost like a mini Halloween route basically. And oh, mom wants to chime in on that as well.

Speaker 6:

So do you remember Secretary Maxine Jones? Oh yes, Her desk in the bottom drawer that had all the toys and goodies that you guys would get into.

Speaker 7:

It was four, four different. It was basically mini Halloween every single time we walked through the yard.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, you guys would sit on our lap and you would play with the typewriter and play with the toys.

Speaker 7:

The antique typewriter. Yeah, and of course, dad. Again, from when I was very young, dad would joke that one day I'd work at the mill and the joke Mom and Dad always had is I'd be the sweeper boy. You know, I would take this old broom, as as old as time itself, you know green handle, yellow bristles, and I would, uh, sweep up the fireplace area which, funny enough, when we were, you know, clearing stuff out of the office, uh, during Thanksgiving break, dad pointed out to me the in the uh, in the fireplace, you know the two uh, you know metal apparatuses that you'd lay the logs across. And he told me he said, hey, take a, take a close look at those. What do you notice about them? And I looked real closely and I was like, wait a minute, those look like railroad tracks. And sure enough, they were made of like little fragments of old railroad tracks, so they're pretty heavy to lift up by themselves. But anyway, he joked that I would sweep that area up.

Speaker 7:

And then, of course, when I finally became a teenager and it was like, okay, time to make some money a little bit and actually work for a living, I did a variety of little things, you know, sweeping around the office. But then eventually the main job I took up was dad had to install security cameras, namely for the purpose of whenever we're loading, you know, whenever out on the loading dock we're loading bulk shipments of bags of flour, you know, 25, 30 bags, whatever. Just keep an eye on the footage and make sure the count is right. You know it's not like a little little good fellows routine that one bag is being skimmed off the top or anything, so make sure the count was right. And then also, of course, on the weekends, if troublesome little delinquents would use the uh ramp to skateboard which of course they're not allowed to do use the loading dock to skateboard. Keep an eye on that and film that.

Speaker 7:

And it was just an interesting experience, you know, to again to grow up with that as a little kid. I would literally hide inside the cabinets in that big old counter, like in the front counter, which I always thought it was just really big when I was a kid. And then I go back later as we're cleaning stuff out and I look back in that space and realize, oh wow, I could still fit inside there because it's just that big, massive counter. But yeah, to grow up with it. Obviously, as a kid I appreciate the candy, but as a young adult now I can appreciate the history that this is. You know, my family built this town and this business and the business in the town more or less built me. So I'll always treasure that. And even though I cannot say that I had the privilege of being part of running the business as my dad did and my grandfather did, I can still say it was an invaluable and irreplaceable part of my life.

Speaker 6:

I can still say it was an invaluable and irreplaceable part of my life. Another special memory that I had was I'm not sure who bought it the car my great-grandfather or my grandfather but they had purchased a Haynes-Apperson horseless carriage and stories were told how it would go to the train station and pick up passengers and take them to the opera house. And then, later in life, bud Rold, one of our mill employees, used to be the driver of this car and we would have it in the homecoming parades and the Christmas parades and our family loved to pile in it. One year my mom she had us all dress in old school clothes for the era and that was kind of fun, but we only did it that one year. But, mom, she had us all dress in old school clothes for the era and that was kind of fun, but we only did it that one year.

Speaker 6:

But I feel like that car was a very important part of Hanford's history was this Haynes-Apperson car that our family still has? And then, a very interesting story I'm a big Steve Perry fan, so I was talking to my dad several years ago when Steve Perry came back with a new album and we got to talking and my dad told me that his uncle, mr Vieira used to work at Lacey Millie and there are so many people in Hanford that I bump into that'll tell me that they had an uncle or a grandfather or any friends and family, because there was a lot of people that through the years had worked at Lacey Millie.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that Haynes-Apperson. By the way, it's 1897 model. It was manufactured in Kokomo, indiana, from the Haynes-Apperson plant and I've been in contact with them before, you know, and there was only like 12 of them that were manufactured and most of those were torn up and used for firewood when needed. But this one's been around ever since and, yeah, like holly was saying it was, it was used to originally as a as to be a kind of a taxi between hanford of the moore and corcoran and it's an amazing vehicle. I mean it's two cylinders opposing and a hand crank to start it and that son of a gun, I mean you could break your forearm on that.

Speaker 3:

You know when that cracks back it's dangerous man Kind of pop the valium before you start trying to start it. But yeah, it's just part of Hanford's history. It reminded me of my first job at the mill was 1959. I was five years old, pushing a broom and I thought it was a game. You know I was dodging the equipment and everything and dueling with a broomstick. You know thinking, ooh, this is fun, can't wait to get back to kindergarten and tell the guys.

Speaker 2:

So we've heard lots of different stories and obviously very important, but when it gets down to it, it's about the business of the business, and I know that not only was it a flour mill for you know forever but also feed. Can you tell us a little bit about what went on as people drove down Fifth Street or, you know, along the freeway? What?

Speaker 3:

was going on at the plant while we were driving by, what was going on behind the scenes. The alliance with Coast Grain Company when we started manufacturing dairy feed was in 1961. And, of course, with the growing dairy industry here in the Valley it serves a good purpose and need and manufactures good products and everything for them, for the consumers. Like I was mentioning myself, I spent most summers during school working at the mill and when I graduated from Hanford High School I went back to work for a couple of years. Well, grandma Beth, she never said she wanted me to go to college, but she kept increasing my hours to where I was up to like 40 to 50 to 60 to 70 hours a week and she figured. Well, that only keeps him out of trouble. But he may think about college and I did. That's funny.

Speaker 4:

Well, the adding the feed mill only made sense from the point of view that when you grind wheat which most of our product became white flour we did have some whole wheat, but when you do that process, about 75% of the volume of the product of the wheat kernel ends up in white flour, and so the remaining 25%, which is used mostly in this area for dairy feed, we would sell it. So, having a feed mill, they could use it themselves in that process and then buy other stuff like cottonseed meal and mix different ingredients together to formulate whatever the dairy was after. But when I started working there at the mill in 1987, the feed mill had been closed down for five years, so I don't have that much experience with that area of the operation.

Speaker 2:

So in later years it became important. It became a big supplier of the flour for tortillas. Is what I understand.

Speaker 4:

Right, we had a salesman, louis Canales, that I believe the only other job he had other than the Korean War was working at Lacey Milling, so he was like a 40-year employee started out and most of the time he was a salesman and so, being Hispanic, he spoke Spanish and it was a natural thing for him to call on tortilla bakeries. As they grew, we grew, and so that had always been our main sales channel was to go into tortilla bakeries sales channel was to go into tortilla bakeries, and I remember the side spurs.

Speaker 2:

They've been taken out now the railroad, but the loading area there was tracks that actually went right up through to the milling and then they could be transported to other places.

Speaker 4:

Well, I can remember that, yeah, they had room for two or three rail cars that would come off of a spur line and they could park them between the office building and the mill building and then they would use a suction system to empty the rail car. But that worked way back when. But these days you need capacity to do 40 rail cars to make it economic. So a number of years ago, when the city was going to repave Fifth Street, they asked us can we take out these spur tracks because you don't seem to be using them and it'd be easier. So we were fine with that.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's no secret with the family, I shared with them several things about Horatio Lacy, and another thing that two things I'd like to bring up is one shortly before he died he donated a very large flag to the city of Hanford for a flag day ceremony and there's pictures of it in several different history books.

Speaker 2:

But it's this giant flag that was put up in front of the courthouse and he was known as the grand old man of Hanford and very patriotic and everybody loved him. In fact, during the war the firehouse bell was in danger of being scrapped and so it was hidden and so they took it down, and when they put it back up they couldn't get it all the way up to the top. So Horatio donated this archway that stood in front of the firehouse and the old fire bell was hung from that, and then, after the building was demolished, it ended up in a couple of different places. I think it might even be out at Fire Station no 2, if I recall out, on 12th and Hampton-Armorna Road. But those kinds of things are so important to local history to know hey, how did that happen? Because of this person. So definitely have a lot of that history.

Speaker 7:

During COVID, we had a bit of a business spike, didn't we? Dan?

Speaker 4:

Like people lining up to do you want to tell that story a little bit, about how, like when the COVID lockdowns hit, like a ton of people were like lining up to get flour well, yeah, you had places like Costco which we didn't sell to, but, uh, sell flour, obviously, and they even had signs out front that they were out of flour at particular times and uh, so, yeah, when it first started, we, our business, actually picked up, uh, because people were trying to stock up and that type of thing. But that maybe lasted for like six months and then after that, not all of our bakery customers I mean most of them sold through grocery stores, that type of thing or their own stores, but a number of them also sold to restaurants and so eventually business went down a little bit because of that avenue decrease.

Speaker 7:

I'll just never forget because I mean, I was already in DC at that time. You know when COVID broke out and everything and dad would still. Every now and then he'd send me, you know, screenshots from the camera system that I used to monitor and he showed me the outside cameras and just this massive line of cars like backed all up and down fifth street and I was like what's going on? He's like they're all here to buy flour, Cause you know, just like everyone was rushing to buy toilet paper, you know everyone was rushing to buy flour and eventually didn't you say you had to put a limit on like how much people could buy?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, actually we did maybe have a couple bag limit, because some people were becoming their own little distributors and wanting to buy a pallet and then go resell it.

Speaker 7:

Just little things like that. Yeah, I just remember that Because at a time when I felt like the whole world was shutting down, you know, a business like this still stayed open.

Speaker 3:

You know I think it was a Hanford Sentinel article years ago that they asked Uncle Chuck Scott and Holly's dad about the business and he said plainly, everybody needs to eat. And I was like whoa, I had an epiphany, that's true, and he was such a great guy.

Speaker 7:

There were also a couple of very fun you know, maybe more pop culture, entertainment stories regarding the mill. That, again, Dad can tell you more about, Because what most people probably don't know is that there have been both a music video and a feature film that were filmed at Lacey Milling Company. So of course, I eventually did see the music video and the movie. Both are not that great, but Dad can tell you a bit more about what the experience was of agreeing to let the mill be a filming location for however many days it was. So, Dad, you want to start with the music video or the movie.

Speaker 4:

Well, yeah, there were a couple of different music videos that crews came down to film some portion of at the mill, the main one being a John Mellencamp video that I've seen on YouTube and it was filmed not just at the mill but they used the Civic and Superior Dairy's locations too. But in the video the storyline was that they had this guy who had a motorcycle with a sidecar and he delivered bottles of milk, and so they filmed in the back portion of the mill and pretended that that was a milk plant, since the original milk plant wasn't there anymore. So that's where we fit into the whole storyline of that video, which I believe was called.

Speaker 7:

Walk Tall. Yes, Walk Tall.

Speaker 3:

And that was Wee man, the little guy that they roughed up and threw the bottles of milk against the walls and everything. And I got to sit there on an ice chest and visit with him and he was just asking all kinds of questions about Hanford, you know, and I was like, well, there was that one time I just told him the door opened for that.

Speaker 7:

You got to be the old man on the park bench for a little while. Just you know, tell them the stories that down, and then, yeah, the other thing of course is the uh yep, and we have, we've have the DVD right here. So there was a movie that was filmed in 1989. Again, not a very good one. It was called Night Shadow.

Speaker 4:

It was originally supposed to be titled Lycanthrope, which is the, I believe, the greek or latin word for werewolf well, yeah, they did have a premiere at the fox theater and at that point in time it was entitled lycanthrope and it was basically sort of a werewolf movie. But when it came out on dvd and a few years ago I bought a few copies it was titled night shadow, then night shadow.

Speaker 7:

so yeah, it's a movie about a a small town called danford you, you know, not Hanford and the premise is that, yeah, some woman comes back home. She's like a big shot TV reporter who comes back to her little small town to find a series of mysterious killings which are by a werewolf. And there's a big element of the movie there's an old mill where, of course, they filmed, inside the old mill at Lacey Milling, and the movie stars a fellow by the name of kato kalin. You may remember him from the infamy of the oj simpson trial and, uh, I remember you mentioned, dad, that of course, for the, the big climax, they, they finally killed a werewolf via an explosion, a car crash and explosion. And when the filmmakers told you that, you said, oh, you're not filming that here, right, and they filmed somewhere else.

Speaker 4:

They found a location in Fresno for that last scene where they blew up the car.

Speaker 7:

There was a part later in the movie where a character I think he's a sheriff's deputy is in the old mill and he sees the werewolf and he stumbles backward in fear and he falls through a hole that falls in down to the first floor and that hole was actually left. That was there in the middle. There was the old abandoned part of the mill, like hadn't been used in many, many years, but the feed mill, yeah, but that hole was still there. And just remember that's like that's not all. They didn't just carve out that little hole for him to fall through, like that was really the old abandoned mill.

Speaker 7:

Cause plot point is that like teenagers will go to the old mill and sneak into the old mill, you know, drink their booze and whatnot, and I remember there's a line where a character says, oh, why don't we just go to the club or something? And one of the kids says there's no history at the club. You know there's history at the old mill or something like that. So just kind of a fun way of incorporating the mill into the movie. But yeah, just the two times that you will see. You know, lacey Milligan, you know pop.

Speaker 3:

According to the 1880 census Hanford's population is like 294. And about 40 of those were transition railroad workers. So you know, when HG came over here, I mean he saw the promise. But there was kind of sparks. There was sheep grazing and cattle.

Speaker 2:

And there wasn't much infrastructure, you know, and there was definitely not a whole lot going on in the town, and that ends the need for incorporation to gain some of those services. So, scott, in 2023, obviously prior to that, you know the writing may have been on the wall, but in 2023, you ceased operations.

Speaker 4:

Tell us a little bit about what goes behind the decision of making such a crucial choice and the impacts on the family and perhaps the impacts on the community. Well, it's been brought up. The brick building where the flour mill operated out of that was put up in 1917. So by 2023, we're talking about a 106-year-old building. So there are a lot of different issues, I'm sure, as every business person knows, you know. I mean, like the drought in this whole valley Over the years, there's less and less wheat being grown. You might still see a fair amount, particularly like on 198, but it tends to be adjacent to dairies and it's not going to be harvested for grain, it's going to be green-chopped for their own animals for feed. So the amount of land dedicated to growing the actual wheat seed has been going down for a number of years. So we preferred to use all California-grown wheat and I think for other than about two or three years during my 37 years of working there, that's all we used. There was a couple years 22 being the last one that we had to buy wheat by rail from out of state, being the last one that we had to buy wheat by rail from out of state, and this was long after we'd gotten rid of our spur, which was not economical anymore anyway. So we would have to pay a grain company. We used ones out of, say, like Visalia and Fresno, that they could receive larger quantities of rail cars and then truck it to us. But you don't have the quality control over the wheat when it's coming like that, and it was pricey too because of all the transportation involved, versus buying something local. So that was impacting the economics of milling in this area. And so I mean my dad passed away in 2022. And I mean he had shared with family members that you know the mill wasn't going to last forever. He knew that at that stage. We had known it the last few years because he had some good years, and then he had some not so good years, you know, over that last decade of operation, and.

Speaker 4:

But then when COVID came, like I said, and. But then when COVID came, like I said, at first our business went up because you did have people coming by to buy flour, which we never did a whole lot. We had a 25 pound retail size that we would sell to certain grocery stores, but at the mill itself we didn't sell that because we didn't want to compete with, you know, save Mart or, way back when, long's Drugs, stuff like that, and so the smallest we sold was 50 pounds. So you really didn't have normally a lot of people that could use that quantity. But during COVID all of a sudden that wasn't too big a quantity for a lot of people, so they would buy that. But then, as I said later on, the customers we had that would sell to restaurants and that type of thing. Their business went down and so ours went down with it.

Speaker 4:

But probably the bigger impact was, just as so many businesses had a harder time keeping stuff in supply and having workers to do everything.

Speaker 4:

Running a hundred-year-old plant, you know, if something broke down and we needed to get it machined which would arise occasionally, it seemed to happen more and more at that time it was more expensive to get something repaired and it would take a little time to do that, and so there were times where we couldn't run the mill because we needed a new shaft to drive the equipment, and so our truck driver might end up going to two locations to split his load because we didn't have enough loads for each of the customers to get a full load individually.

Speaker 4:

And by this time most of our accounts were from LA to the Bay Area, but we didn't have a lot of big accounts in the valley because there's a very large mill in Fresno and they over time were able to outprice us on stuff there. So it just became an age issue with the plant, an economic issue with keeping it running and then somewhat of an employee issue too. You don't have a lot of people that could come with any experience to a mill like this, because we were the last independent mill in California and so you'd have to train people up and if they left then you're sort of shorthanded. So it was a variety of factors shorthanded.

Speaker 2:

So it was a variety of factors, but I would imagine you know, just with so many businesses I think, see this in particular the manufacturing industry, with things becoming so automated and on large scales and those things, so, but what a run.

Speaker 6:

Seven generations.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 136 years, that's just fantastic. I want to thank you for joining us and it's been a wonderful time together, and I want to thank you for your time, and not only today, but over the last 100-plus years. Are there any future plans for the site? Have you had any ideas of what is?

Speaker 4:

for sale. There are no plans to have an alternative business there at this point in time. We have already got our demo permits from the city of Hanford for the brick building and the office building. The metal buildings will be left up for now. So yeah, during 2025, we would expect the main buildings to come down, and it's just during this.

Speaker 4:

Last year we had a company out of Fresno and then the city of Hanford engineers themselves come through and look at it to see if they could think of alternative uses for the site.

Speaker 4:

And again, because the building has been up for so long and you've had so many pieces of equipment relocated within it over time, it's a three-story building with a basement that you've had holes cut in the flooring where shafts were moved and this type of thing like that so it would be very expensive. I mean recently, you know you hear where the city sold the courthouse for a dollar to a brewery with the condition that they're going to upgrade it, because the city's estimates would cost $10 million to bring it up to code and all that. Well, the mill was probably in worse shape than that and so, while we've never gotten estimates on what it would cost to upgrade, there's issues with. It's all up on a dock, so it's three feet above ground level, which that creates problems too in terms of access and the fact that a lot of stuff because we pre-existed the city weren't required to be up to current code. It would just be extremely expensive to have another use.

Speaker 2:

I was just curious about it. I see something great happening on the site and wouldn't it be fitting if there was some kind of way of acknowledging the history of the company on that site and I think Michael and I will probably be strong advocates for that kind of marker or something. If nothing else, yeah, no matter what it turns into. Hopefully I'm not parking a lot. Advocates for that kind of marker or something. If nothing else, yeah, and no matter what it turns into. Hopefully I'm not parking a lot, but no matter what it turns into. I definitely think that that site is an important part of Hanford history and deserves that kind of recognition.

Speaker 7:

And that's why, you know, something again that is undertaken very importantly is gathering as much stuff as possible out of the mill, particularly the office building. You know we got all kinds of portraits from the office wall and various you know old, uh, the old cash register, other old desks. There's a lot of old things. So it's very important that we are keeping plenty of artifacts from the mill that you know, even though the buildings may soon go down, you're still going to have more than enough. You know, oh, there's the old intercom that was in the office. You know, by uh, you know, the secretary's desk. There's just all kinds of incredible things. And whether there is a museum one day, who knows. But uh, we're happy to hold on to that history. So anyone else who wants to appreciate it and see it can continue to appreciate it and see it.

Speaker 2:

That's great. Well, thank you so much. Everybody Thank you Awesome.

Speaker 2:

I'm so glad that I was able to connect with the Lacey Milling family over Christmas, when so many of them were in town. I'd also like to thank my fellow historian, michael Seamus, for joining me. I spent hours poring over historical information from the Hanford Sentinel, the Hanford Centennial Book and several other publications. I was even able to incorporate some of my mother's own research, so it was really a treat to document this important part of Hanford's history. Now let's get caught up on sports, and now it's time for Hanford Insider Sports with Eric Bentley.

Speaker 1:

All of the local basketball and soccer teams saw action over the break, with several of them seeing great improvements in tournaments and crosstown rivalry games. Here's where all of the teams stand as we head into the heart of league action. In boys basketball, hanford High is looking good with a 12-5 overall record and will look to improve on that this week as they take on Tulare Union, tulare Western and Liberty. The Sierra Pacific boys find themselves at 7-11 on the year, with a pair of matchups coming up this week versus Washington Union and Exeter, and the Hanford West boys have two chances to pick up their first win of the year this week as they'll take on Kingsburg and CVC. In girls basketball, two teams find themselves sitting at 10-5. Hanford West improved to that 10-5 mark with a 73-42 win against Hanford High over the break, and this week they'll take on Exeter and the other local 10-5 team, sierra Pacific. As for the Golden Bears, they'll put their 10-5 record to the test with that game against Hanford West, as well as with matchups against Reedley and St Mary's, and the Hanford High girls have struggled through their first 12 games as they'll look to pick up their third win of the year this week against Tulare Union. And now on the soccer field, all three girls teams sit above .500 on the

Speaker 1:

year. We'll start with Hanford High, who holds an impressive 14-2 record so far this

Speaker 1:

season. The Bullpups will be in action twice this week as they take on Tulare Union and Tulare Western. This week, as they take on Tulare Union and Tulare Western, the Hanford West girls find themselves 7-4-1 overall, with matchups against Washington Union and Selma looming this week, and the Sierra Pacific girls will put their 5-4-1 record to the test this week as they face off against Reedley and Emanuel. As for the boys' soccer action, hanford High sits at 5-4-2 on the season, with three games upcoming this week versus Porterville, tulare Union and Tulare Western. The Sierra Pacific boys will look to improve on their 2-8-1 record with games against Emanuel and Kingsburg this week, and Hanford West boys will get two chances to pick up their second win of the season as they'll take on Washington Union and CVC this week. As always, we'd like to cover as many local sports as possible, so if you have a score report or a story idea, make sure to email hanfordinsider at gmailcom. I'm Eric Bentley and this has been your Hanford Insider Sports Report.

Speaker 2:

That's all the time we have for this week's show. If you enjoyed this podcast and you'd like to show your support, you can go to buymeacoffeecom slash hanfordinsider to make a donation. If you'd like to join the Hanford Insider email list, stop by my website at hanfordinsidercom to sign up for updates. You'll also get an exclusive copy of my newsletter in your inbox each week. I also need your help getting the word out about the show by liking and sharing on social media or telling a friend For more information about the show. You can find this podcast on Facebook, instagram, threads X and YouTube at Hanford Insider. I'm also on TikTok at Hanford Insider 1. If you have a show idea, be sure to email me at hanfordinsider at gmailcom and I'll look into it. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.

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Rob Bentley

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