RANDOLPH MILLS EMPLOYEE PICNIC

1947

FRANKLINVILLE

1947

FRANKLINVILLE’S SIGNATURE PRODUCT

Dainty Biscuit Flour

RANDOLPH MILLS COMPANY PICNIC

• Starting in 1947, Randolph Mills gave an annual picnic to their employees. The first one served pork barbecue, cooked on site. Later ones served chicken barbecue, cooked in pits in the park.
• The mill company built temporary wooden tables and benches, cooking sheds and a stage for the event; in later years the tables were made out of concrete for permanence, and some are still there.
• By 1954, so many non-employees were showing up for the free food that the picnic was cancelled.

PARKING FOR THE PICNIC

In front of the Upper Mill

CROWD GATHERS

DRINKS AT THE READY

There was lemonade and Coca-cola and Orange Crush and Yoo-Hoo chocolate milk.

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CUTTING LEMONS

LEMONADE WAITING

LEMONADE BARRELL

COOKS WAITING

CHOPPING BARBECUE

COOKS CHOPPING

DESSERT TABLE

FILLING YOUR PLATE

WAITING IN LINE

WAITING FOR THE SPEECH

GOING HOME

DAINTY BISCUIT FLOUR

• The signature product of Franklinville, even more than the flannel and printed flour sacks made in the cotton mills, was Dainty Biscuit Flour.
• Beginning in the late 1920s the ‘fancy roller flour’ was rebranded “Dainty Biscuits,” the small biscuits used for church suppers and garden club lunches. (As opposed to the big ‘Cat Head’ biscuits now made at Bojangles and Biscuitville). Dainty biscuit flour was refined white flour, with baking soda added to make it ‘self-rising’.
• The Franklinville Roller Mill was the first supplier of flour to Maurice Jennings of Burlington, the founder of Biscuitville. Jennings was a Flour Broker, who dealt regularly with Randolph Mills. He first sold at his Pizzaville restaurant in Burlington in 1972. When the first Biscuitville opened in Danville in 1975, it used Dainty Biscuit flour.

THE GRIST MILL

Water-ground Stone-ground Corn Meal and Whole Wheat Flour

PRODUCTS OF THE GRIST MILL

1912

THE ROLLER MILL, 1913

Wheat stones on the loading dock

INSIDE THE ROLLER MILL

About 1920

PANCAKE FLOUR

Dainty Biscuit Flour was even more popular for pancakes than it was for biscuit-making; the company promoted it at the annual State Fair, taking stoves and cooks from Franklinville to serve pancakes and Hancock Ham biscuits to fairgoers. It was also the flour of choice for the Kiwanis Pancake Supper in Asheboro, and Randolph Mills gave special price breaks to pancake suppers all over the Piedmont.

ROLLER MILL MANAGEMENT

1940

CREW AT THE ROLLER MILL

Unloading Wheat

ROLLER MILL MARKETING

Popular at the STATE FAIR

STATE FAIR BOOTH

ADDING THE FEED MILL

The Feed Mill was originally added in 1938; this view shows a 1948 expansion. The Terra Cotta Silos were built in 1946; the Miller’s House and the hill it sat on was bulldozed for a parking lot in the mid-1950s.

P.F. HIGGINS WITH

HIS MODEL MILL

At the NC State Fair.

THE HIGGINS MODEL MILL TODAY

Donated to Randolph Heritage by Nancy Gregory,

grand-daughter of P.F. Higgins.