CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 



did not come until it was compelled to come by 

 the deluge of Reaper wheat that flooded the 

 markets in 1870. 



As usually happens in the case of inventions, 

 it came where it was not expected. It made its 

 arrival in the Hungarian city of Budapest in 

 1874. The "new process," as it was called, was 

 based upon the use of steel rolls instead of stones. 

 It was as superior to the old-fashioned way as 

 the Reaper had been to the sickle or as the 

 thresher was to the flail. It was amazingly quick 

 and produced a better flour. By reason of 

 these new mills, Budapest became at a bound 

 the foremost "Flour City" of the world, and 

 held its place against all comers until 1890. 



Then the prestige passed to Minneapolis 

 a young city on the head-waters of the Missis- 

 sippi, the recent home of the prairie-dog and 

 the buffalo. Shortly before the Civil War, a 

 youthful lawyer named William D. Washburn 

 drifted westwards from Maine until he came to 

 Minneapolis, at that time a tiny village on the 

 frontier. He found no clients here, and no law; 

 but he did find a ledge of limestone rock jutting 



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