This past spring, Niagara Discoveries considered the history of the popular Shredded Wheat cereal and its long-time association with the city of Niagara Falls. That product was developed by Henry D. Perky in 1895. The process of making shredded wheat involved boiling the wheat and then baking it into squares, so when milk was added, it created a healthy breakfast cereal. After outgrowing a factory in Worcester, Massachusetts, Perky moved his business to the Cataract City in 1901 to take advantage of the cheap hydro-electricity being generated by the Niagara Falls Power Company. Shredded Wheat was produced in Niagara Falls until 1954, and its sister product, Triscuits, were made there until 2001 when the parent company, Kraft Foods, moved the operations across the river to Niagara Falls, Ontario, ending 100 years of manufacture in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
Although Shredded Wheat is the more well-known brand, and is still produced today in Naperville, Illinois, under the Post cereal brand, Lockport had its own wheat-based breakfast food a full decade before Perky opened his factory in Worcester. In 1885, Franklin Mills, located at Spring and Garden street in East Lockport (Lowertown), introduced their “recently perfected food preparation—the new and delicious ‘Wheatlet.’”
The company had been founded in 1877 by a group of Lockport businessmen including N.P. Currier, W.S. Camp, J. Carl Jackson, and A. S. Beverly. Charles E. Dickinson joined the firm a few years later and he is largely credited with the development of the Wheatlet cereal. The mill was housed in a four-story stone building raised in 1833 as a cotton mill which was later owned by Washington Hunt and Henry Walbridge. It was converted to a flour mill in 1854, making “Benjamin Franklin Flour,” hence the name, Franklin Mills. It was operated by Benjamin Moore, who also had a mill on Pine Street which later became City Hall and is now Old City Hall with occupants including Stooges Restaurant. The building was later purchased by the above mentioned men who retained it as Franklin Mills.
In the late 19th century, foods that were touted to improve both physical and mental health, including digestion and nerves, were becoming popular in the United States. Products such as Sylvester Graham’s crackers and John Henry Kellogg’s corn flakes, made with “pure” ingredients, were offered as an alternative to patent medicines, which also made the same health claims but often contained alcohol, opium or cocaine. Wheatlet cereal was made from the heart of the wheat, and later, taking a jab at Shredded Wheat, an ad boasted it was not “soaked until machines give shape.” It was also stated that the manufacturing process for making Wheatlet was such that “neither nitrates nor phosphates are lost for your better health and happiness.”
The slogan for Wheatlet was “All the Wheat That’s Fit to Eat.” Unlike the Shredded Wheat Company, which took every effort to publicly disclose the manufacturing and preparation process of their product, Franklin Mills’ advertisements, though singing the praises of Wheatlet, rarely described how it was made or how to eat it. It is assumed that people knew to add boiling water and include fruit or other ingredients to enhance the flavor. Wheatlet was originally sold in both bulk and packages but the bulk was discontinued in 1903 when it was found that some dealers were adding inferior wheat products to the loose Wheatlet.
Franklin Mills was aggressive about advertising Wheatlet cereal. A building at the base of the Flight of Five locks was emblazoned with the words, “Lockport Home of Wheatlet.” Newspapers all over the United States carried ads and testimonials for the health benefits of the cereal. The company offered monetary prizes to merchants who created the best Wheatlet window display, had it photographed and sent it in to be judged. In 1903, the company capitalized on the airship (Zeppelin) craze by giving the “boys of Lockport” an “aluminum Wheatlet flyer, which goes up in the air and comes back again to earth at your will” when their parents bought a package of Wheatlet. Notices appeared in the newspapers when a Wheatlet story or advertisement was going to run in a national publication so consumers could look for it. They even ran a story about how the “physicoogical” [sic] department of Northwestern University in Chicago was “conducting an investigation on the effect of advertising on the average person” and that Franklin Mills was following this study very closely, particularly the use of “direct command upon the average consumer.” The Lockport Journal applauded the company’s efforts at “spreading the fame of Lockport to the four corners of the earth…” Wheatlet was sent all over the world including the “Philippines, Constantinople, Melbourne, Calcutta and Bermuda.”
Not everyone was enamored of Franklin Mills’ advertising tactics. When the company asked newspaper publishers across the country to commit to running a Wheatlet ad for 26 weeks “in exchange for half a barrel of flour and four packages of Wheatlet,” the Niagara Falls Gazette responded in their “Town Scold” feature that “this is without a doubt, one of the nerviest propositions which has been made in many a day…” A month later, the same newspaper continued to chastise the company saying it “ought to be ashamed of itself for making such a ridiculously silly offer…” It is not known how many newspapers took the company up on its offer. Perhaps this was just an example of the competition between two Niagara County cities and the cereal each produced.
In 1907, Franklin Mills and its Wheatlet cereal were still reigning at the top of the breakfast food chain but were getting some competition from their rival in Niagara Falls. This reign took a tumble on Nov. 4, 1907 when a disastrous fire destroyed the Franklin Mills. Following the fire, most of the structure was torn down but the first floor and a two-story stone tower were rehabilitated and have been used by other businesses, including briefly by the Upson Company, over the past 100-plus years. That section is standing today with the building date, 1833, still visible above the door.
Franklin Mills relocated its operation to Batavia. Wheatlet was continued there but by the 1930s, the company began to transition to soy-wheat products. Franklin Mills stayed in business until 1965 when urban renewal in Batavia took the 1880s stone mill building on Ellicott Street along with many other historic structures. Today there is a long, one-story, non-descript building housing several small buildings where the old mill once stood. Although products called “wheatlet” are still available today, unlike Shredded Wheat, wheatlet is now a generic name rather than a brand name.