Tempe Historic Property Survey

The Hayden Flour Mill is significant as the oldest continuously used industrial site in the Salt River Valley, for its association with the Charles Trumbull Hayden family, who founded and operated the mill for three generations, and as the most important community industry through the settlement and development periods of Tempe’s history.

Charles T. Hayden built the first mill on the site in 1874.   The original adobe mill burned about 1890, and the second mill built on the site, also constructed of adobe, burned in 1917. The existing three and four-story mill was built in 1918 by prominent valley concrete contractor, J. C. Steele. Constructed of cast-in-place concrete post, beam and integral slab construction, the structure is the largest known construction effort in Steele’s career. The 1918 mill exists with its original integrity only slightly modified to accommodate the complex. The Hayden Flour Mill was the larger of two such mills that existed in the state in the 1980s, and operated a 4000-100 weight capacity pneumatically operated mill up until 1997, when milling operations ceased. The mill closed for good in March 1998.

The Hayden Flour Mill is a three and four-story rectangular brick and reinforced concrete structure measuring 40 ft. by 140ft. The mill is located on the east side of Mill Avenue at the base of Tempe Butte. The exterior walls have discrete awing window locations and large freight door openings. The roofs are flat with minimal parapets. A pre-1927 brick grain warehouse is located west of the mill. Measuring 30 ft. by 110 ft., the rectangular warehouse has a concrete floor and wood truss gable roof. Later additions have been added to the mill on the east and north, and in 1951 a concrete grain elevator with seven silos was added to the site, southeast of the mill. The 1918 corrugated steel rollers, which replaced the original grinding stones, were still in use in the 1980s.

For more details see Excerpts from Newspaper Articles and Documents about the Hayden Flour Mill

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