The Great Seattle Flour Price War
A California miller defies the combine, forcing a drop in prices to the delight of local consumers.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
War has been declared in the flour market again, and during the past two days the price has gone down from $4.50 to $4.15 a barrel. The fight is due to the refusal of the manufacturers of the Green Crown brand of California flour to enter the combine of the California mills. This combine was formed some time ago with the object of fixing the price of the leading brands at $4.50 a barrel. The Green Crown Company refused to go in, and immediately the price was put down to $4.00. It had remained firm at this figure ever since until a few days ago, when the fight broke out in all its fury. It is anticipated that the Green Crown people will capitulate very soon and either go into the combine or be governed by its prices. The Tacoma mill, which manufactures the Rainier and Olympic brands, has met the cut, and so the merry war goes on at present. It is probably the best opportunity consumers will have to lay in a supply of cheap flour.
“It is probably the best opportunity consumers will have to lay in a supply of cheap flour.”
Price-fixing and corporate 'combines' were the 1892 version of today's concerns over market concentration and grocery cart inflation. While Seattleites today deal with a different set of supply chain pressures, the public fascination with the fluctuating cost of household staples remains a constant.
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