The Queen Bee Mill

Listen to The Queen Bee Mill Episode of Local Lou!

This historical marker stands guard next to the ruins of the Queen Bee Mill in Falls Park. The marker tells us the story of the literal rise and fall of the 104 foot tall mill. How right after it was built in 1881 it survived the largest recorded flood in Sioux Falls but would ultimately be destroyed by fire in 1956.  

RF Pettigrew was a man that was trying to make the budding city of Sioux Falls happen. He was bringing railroads here and investors one of those investors was George Seney a railroad man and banker. Pettigrew had the dream of a booming mill along the Falls on the Big Sioux River and George Seney had the deep pockets to help make this dream happen. In 1879 Seney buys the 81 acres around the falls including what will soon be called Seney Island an island that will eventually get eaten up by progress.

 The Queen Bee Mill will take two years a bunch of investors and about half a million dollars to build. This is not going to be a run of the mill, mill. The Queen Bee Mill is going to be top of the line its full of state of the art equipment now all it needs is steady water flow for the turbine and a good wheat crop.... Oh no looks like we are fresh out of both. Its a combination of things that lead to the closing of the original mill only 4 years later in 1885 and one of those being bankruptcy. 

The mill is going to change hands a few times before becoming a warehouse and then meeting its firey fate in 1956. The origin of the fire is unknown but the damage will never be forgotten as all the wooden insides of the building would be disintegrated and the 104 foot walls would start to cave in.  A few years later the precarious walls were taken down leaving the ruins. Enter my childhood when I used to walk around the ruins with my sister and pretend we were bakers, because somehow I figured if they were milling things they would be a bakery as well. The fence would be added around the ruins in the mid nineties and now the historical marker is there to tell the tale to any who stop to read it.