Farmers Cooperative Association
First Sixty One Years of This Association

Joe Dockins

The year of 1995 marks the 78th year of the operation for this association.  This is an achievement in itself.  Not all of these years have been easy, and you can be sure the years ahead may be an even bigger challenge.  I well remember the first annual meeting I attended, the year was 1950.  Fourteen were present, eight directors; elevator manager, Mr. Harold Wetgate; myself, JoeDockins, manager of the oil department at the time; and four members.

Not until the mid fifties did the numbers change much.  We began having what we called neighbor night.  We invited members and their entire families for a dinner and other activities.  The first year or two we served aroung two to three hundred people.  It continued to grow until we no longer had a place large enough to have it.  We started at the old Pottorf Hall, than located on Pottawatomie Street, and later to city Hall at 11th and Poyntz.  The last year in the early sixties we had twenty three hundred.  These neighbor nights could not have been possible without the volunteer help of all employees, wives and many of our members.

One person we depended on to keep everything on line was Irene Bailey.  If we had a number of people coming, she could tell us how many pounds of ham, cans of beans, jars of pickles and etc. we needed.  She was our supervisor and Irene did a great job.  These neighbor nights were the beginning of the growth of this association during these 78 years.

Being associated with the Co-op for more than 54 years, first as a member and later as an employee for 35 years, I feel I had some hand in the success of the association.  Having the opportunity of knowing some of the original directors that helped start the Co-op has helped a great deal.  Specifically knowing John Toy, who was chairman of the Board for 40 years.  In 1917 John Toy and a few other farmers were not pleased with the prices farmers were receiving for their grain.  Wheat prices were as much as 50 cents per bushel under Kansas City prices, freight to Kansas City was about 4 cents per bushel.

John Toy decided to try and do something about it.  He began talking to other farmers who had the same feelings.

After a few months of hard work John had convinced Elbert Huse, Everett Hayes, L. A. Arnold, Bruce Wilson, Harry Tennant, U. R. Zeller, Herman Britschge, and D. B. Walker to join him in his venture.  These men were the original board.  They organized a board of directors, electing Everett Hayes as the first president; John Toy, Vice President; and  L. A. Arnold, Secretary/Treasurer.  The next venture was money.  The three officers contacted two banks, but were turned down by both.  They didn't give up and contacted the third which was the Citizens State Bank.  Not the one in operation in Manhattan today.

After a complete detailed explanation and the purpose of the money needed and the bank holding two Bank Board meetings, they agreed to make the loan.  

They needed thirty six thousand dollars.  A loan of this size on a single note was nearly impossible in 1917.  So, the Bank agreed to make a personal loan of four thousand dollars to each director with a stiff mortgage for each.

With the money they purchased several city lots and a wood elevator, located at 118 Pierre street in Manhattan and "The Farmers Union Co-op Elevator was born."

The wood elevator was mostly a rail car load out facility with little or no storage.  In 1919 the wood elevator was torn down and a concrete elevator was built, one of the first concrete elevators in Kansas with about a twenty thousand bushel capacity.

The old wood elevator was rebuilt on the Charley Hatch farm on McDowell Creek.  I believe a portion of it still stands.

In 1919 or 1920 a grocery, clothing and hardware store was opened.  It was located in the southwest corner of  3rd and Poyntz, just across the street from the mall.

They sold some lots to Ramey Brother Lumber Co. so they could have rail service into their business.  In later years we could have used the lots.

In 1927 the grocery store burned down and the directors decided not to rebuild and sold the lots.  The elevator office was a wood building and also housed an egg and cream department, and later a hay shed was added.  They also added one gas pump at the south end of the elevator office.  

In 1929 Howard Cowden began a Co-op in Kansas City under the name of " Union Oil Co." selling petroleum products.  The elevator began buying gas and oil from Union Oil Co.  The elevator received one of the first shares of common stock for $25.00.  I'm sure your association still has the same.  Union Oil Co. later became CCA or Consumers Cooperative Association, now known as Farmland Industries.

In 1931 your association found themselves in financial trouble.  After a long board meeting, which lasted three days, the directors decided to try selling preferred stock paying 6% interest.  They began having meetings at school houses around Manhattan.  The stock was $25.00 Class A shares.  No matter how many shares one farmer purchased he had only one vote.  This is true of your Co-op today.  The efforts were successful and they were able to reorganize in 1932.  

In 1935 a small service station was built at 2nd & Pierre street on the west portion of the elevator lots.  It had a 10' X 10' building in the center, one pump on the one side and two pumps on the west side.  Another small building was built to grease cars and repair tires.  The service added a bulk delivery truck to haul gas to the country.  

Once again the elevator added a grocery store to their operation.  However, it was not a profitable operation, it was a service to the patrons.  

The association continued to service its patrons for the next several years without much growth in the elevator.  The service station was growing and it purchased lots on South 4th street to add more storage tanks.  At that time they also added a new and larger delivery truck and began furnishing 2, 3 and 5 hundred gallon storage tanks to farmers at no cost to them.  

In 1946 a new service station was built.  It was a much larger 100' X 60' buildings with four pumps in front and two pumps on the North side of the building.  We were now able to offer complete service, greasing cars and trucks and having two full time mechanics.  In 1950 we added a farm service tire truck and many more items of merchandise.

Disaster hit once again with the 1951 flood, as many remember.  I surely do as I became manager of the oil department July 1, 1950.  On that day we had a 4" rain and a big hail storm.  

July 13, 1951 water was 7' 2" deep in the station and all the buildings, elevator and grocery store.  The loss in all departments totalled well over one hundred thousand dollars.  Clean up was quite expensive.  It was the end of the grocery business again.

The service station did survive, the elevator had a hard time in coming back.  

In 1953 I felt the station should be in the propane business.  When I told the Board it would cost between twenty and thirty thousand dollars they nearly fell off the 35 pound grease buckets we sat on, as we had no board room with table and chairs at that time.  In 1954 they agreed to do it.  It paid for itself in nine months.  In 1955 I talked them into handling anhydrous fertilizer, it too was successful.  In 1956 Tuttle Creek was being built and we were losing a big part of our business up and down the Blue River.  Once again we must do something to replace this territory.

In 1957 we purchased 10 or 12 acres of land in Westmoreland and built a bulk plant and began delivering fuel into a new territory.  It was working for us, so in 1958 we built a service station in Westmoreland and began selling gas at the pumps, also selling feed, fertilizer and many other items, it was quite successful.

In 1958 it was either build some grain storage or close the elevator, it could no longer operate.  They built a clay block silo in 1958 holding only about ten thousand bushel, which collapsed about the time it was full.  Another mess to clean up, clay blocks and wheat in a pile.  This was not the first mistake, the elevator built a cob burner to burn cobs after shelling corn.  That too had to be torn down before we burned down half the town from the sparks it put into the air.  The oil department was paying the elevator rent on the ground the station sat on, we paid their taxes and interest on their stock.  You understand, we were two departments, oil and elevator with two separate managers.

In 1958 the directors were talking about building a silo holding around 100,000 bushels.  I made the remark, we should be building storage of at least 250,000 bushels.  The government would loan the money at 3% interest and they would guarantee you 90% full for storage income.  I also suggested maybe we should look for a larger place to build.  

The elevator manager told me "you don't know anything about the grain business so why don't you keep still".  We really needed more room regardless what was built.  Two directors began looking for a larger place.  They found 20 acres on which to build that could be bought for $500.00 per acre, they took an option on it.  The two directors came to me and asked me for a check for $1000.00 to hold the option and I gave them one.  One of the directors was vice president and the other secretary of the Board at the time.  The location was great.  The Board voted on the location and it lost, four for it and five against.  I nearly got fired because the entire Board didn't tell me to give anyone a check for anything.  The option money was returned and no one was hurt except the Co-op "yet today".  (Sale Barn is on it now)

Before any kind of an elevator could be built the association must borrow money.  We had not been associated with the Wichita Bank for Cooperatives.  Our Board contacted them, they sent a field man here to meet with our Board June 1, 1958.

The Board told them of our needs and the Bank sent their appraiser to see if they could make the loan to the elevator.  After going over the elevators assets and studying their income, they would not make the loan unless the oil department's assets were included in the mortgage.

The oil department was building a new warehouse next to Ramey Lumber Co. at the time and the oil department needed no money.  I, Joe Dockins, can honestly say during all the expansions the oil department made during the past years, not once did we borrow money.  We had the money to make these expansions.

I guess, I was somewhat upset and felt if the oil department was going to be partly responsible for the repayment of the debt we should have some say in the operation.  The new part of the elevator was built in 1959 in time to take wheat.

The cost of the new elevator was $110,000.00.  At the first Board meeting in August 1959, I told the Board of Directors I was resigning effective September 1, 1959 because of the mortgage responsibility and no control over the operation.  The Board hired me as the first General Manager effective January 1, 1960.

About this same time the Alta Vista Co-op was having financial problems.  Alta Vista Board asked to meet with us.  A meeting of the two Boards did develop and they talked about a possibility of consolidating.  After several meetings of the Boards and meeting with members of both associations, a vote was taken of the members of the two and 2/3 majority of the members voted to consolidate.  It had to be 2/3 to be affirmed, the year was 1960.

It was necessary for us to change our bylaws and Articles of Incorporation, it too was completed.

Next was to take a complete inventory.  In doing so we found 75,000 bushels of wheat in a guonset hut.  The top three feet was out of condition.  Commodity Credit said that we had to buy all of the 75,000 bushel.  We took three feet of wheat off the top of the guonset hut which was 75 to 80 feet long, what a job.  We hauled the wheat to Far-Mar-Co., had a loss of $25,000.00.

The consolidation was a liability, not an asset.  We made several changes at the Alta Vista elevator, making it possible to make bulk feed, added more storage, and added anhydrous and bulk fertilizer.  In 1963 we also built a new service station at Alta Vista.

At this time we needed more office space.   In 1961 we tore down the old elevator office,  old grocery store and cream station and built a new business office, elevator office and a warehouse all in one building.  We also changed our name to Farmers Cooperative Association.    In 1963 a whole new venture appears on the horizon, one I tried to avoid.  We were contacted by some farmers from Onaga to build a Co-op there.  They were asking for an elevator, feedmill, fertilizer and much more.  The Board talked it over and decided we should at least meet with them and talk about it.  We did several times and could not make a decision as to the support we really had from the farmers.  I decided to look into the cost of such a facility needed to make such an operation feasible.  After meeting with two different contractors that were familiar with elevator and feedmills, I arrived at a figure of $225,000.00 to $250,000.00.  We set another meeting and I told my directors I had found a way out, they were interested in my ideas.  I said I was going to tell them if they put up $100,000.00 cash on the barrel head, we would proceed, being sure it would be the end. 

But about one week later two men from Onaga walked into my office and laid down $102,325.00 on my desk and said when will you start work?  Boy was I lost for words.  Well the first thing was find a location on which to build.  We needed to be on a railroad site.  So we began looking and had several places offered to us. 

We hired a geologist and had him go with us to Onaga to help find a site.  The first thing he said was "you better drill some test holes to see what is under this ground."  We drilled for more than a mile in several places along the railroad.  All we could find was 75' of muck before we could find any gravel.  We would need to use pilings to hold the weight of an elevator.  It would cost as much to drive pilings to hold the elevator as it would cost to build the elevator above ground.  That was not feasible.

So we began looking again and found the 13 acres where the elevator is today.  We bought the site about 5:00 p.m. for $250.00 per acre, but being too late to make up a contract that day, we told the owner we would be back the next morning.  The next morning the price had gone up to $500.00 per acre because his attorney had advised him he wasn't getting enough for the land.  We had no choice but pay it.  The elevator, feedmill and warehouse was completed in 1964 for $235,000.00.  During the years of the fifties, sixties and most of the seventies we had growing pains.  Upgrading facilities, adding fertilizer equipment and adding three large grain dryers at a cost of $175,000.00.

During harvest every year we were in hot water because we didn't have enough storage.  In late 1977 we began thinking of building an elevator to take care of the over flow of grain from the other three elevators.

Again we started looking for a site to build on.  We were interested in some ground about 1 1/2 miles East of town.  We made an offer of $5,000.00 per acre.  It was an estate, two parties would sell one would not.  We made an offer of $6,000.00 per acre but it did not change the mind of one.  (Carlson Farm)

We had to look elsewhere and bought the site were the elevator is today paying $2,500.00 per acre.  December 1, 1977 the association entered into contract for the construction of a 750,000 bushel capacity concrete elevator on the site.  The total contract and related costs were $1,300,000.00.

We had some opposition from a few neighbors because of noise and dust.  But, mostly from a real estate broker for hurting sales of homes near by, causing us to go to court before getting a permit.  This held us up about two months, costing about $100,000.00 more. 

We were open for milo harvest, however, little did we know that the City would be forcing us out of the City of Manhattan to build a mall.  During the eighties we were busy moving all of the Manhattan Elevator, offices and the complete business to the new site. 

In reality, had the service station not been successful there may not have been a Farmers Cooperative Association today.  I had the opportunity of seeing it be successful, growing from $120,000.00 in sales per year to nearly $9,000,000.00 in sales and reaching an all time high of $760,000.00 in savings in 1974, may years one half million in savings.

I retired July 1, 1978.  Had it not been for the type of employees I had during the years it would have been impossible.  Several of them were fellow employees for more than 20 years. 

I had the privilege of serving under 39 individual directors during my years of employment.  Each were capable and had the skill to make a business successful.  I also served under four presidents, John Toy, Herb Reopke, Harold Goff and Harry Hartner.

This is a small portion of the first 61 years of this association. 



Joe Dockins past General Manager