Legacy and Decline

Sperry Incorporated had become a true Food Giant by the early 1900s. By 1908 the company had warehouses totaling 20,000 tons in capacity and provided 10,000 tons of barley per month to the local market. Sperry expanded its empire until it owned a total of seventeen mills in the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. These had the capacity to produce 10,000 barrels of flour a day.

Sperry Incorporated had many brands of flour: Sperry's Best Family, Drifted Snow, Golden Gate, Snow Flake, Pioneer, and Stocktonia. Sperry would deliver flour to the community in horse drawn wagons called drays. The foreign demand for Sperry's flour became very large. Sperry was shipping flour to San Francisco every evening and every few days an extra steamer was used to fill the orders. By 1900 Sperry was shipping flour to Honolulu, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Yokohama, Manila, Alaska, Mexico, Central American states, China, Japan and the Philippines.

Although Sperry continued to be profitable and had some very successful years, the changing agricultural profile of the delta became a problem. The size of their empire and the demand for their flour outpaced the production of wheat in the delta. Farmers had shifted production toward more profitable fruit and fruit trees replaced wheat fields making Sperry increasingly reliant on imported wheat from abroad.

The Sperry Empire began to slowly decline in 1909. The price of wheat flour went up 60 cents making the cost of a sack of flour $1.80. Massive layoffs began in 1909 as higher paid employees, who had been with the company for decades lost their jobs. During the downturn, a new board of directors took over and began to lease Sperry-owned properties for cash flow. They closed factories in Chico and Marysville and consolidated their production in the Stockton mills.

Although Sperry continued to be profitable and had some very successful years, the changing agricultural profile of the delta became a problem. The size of their empire and the demand for their flour outpaced the production of wheat in the delta. Farmers had shifted production toward more profitable fruit and fruit trees replaced wheat fields making Sperry increasingly reliant on imported wheat from abroad. The Union mill was converted into a warehouse in 1926 when Sperry moved operations to Vallejo and Capitol Mill was bought by N.Y. investors a year a later.

When General Mills purchased Sperry in 1952 and moved operations back to Stockton, the company had established itself as a food giant of the delta for a century.