Royal Patent Flour

No wonder there are so many extant wall signs for Royal Patent Flour in the Mound City—the flour was the flagship product of the Stanard-Tilton Milling Company and the Stanards were Captains of Industry in St. Louis during the 19th and 20th centuries. William K. Stanard—son of Edwin O. Stanard, former governor of Missouri—was president of the company, while his son, Edwin T. Stanard, a 1906 Princeton graduate, was, at various times, vice-president, general manager and secretary of the mammoth business concern.  With principal offices in St. Louis, Stanard-Tilton owned mills, warehouses, and elevators in Dallas, St. Louis and, in Illinois—Rockford, Jerseyville, and Alton.  The company was eventually bought out by Pillsbury Flour Mills, which maintained a plant in North St. Louis until it, in turn, was bought out by Archer-Daniels Midland [ADM], which still operates the milling facility located at I-70 and Shreve Avenue.

The Painted Ad has located five different Royal Patent Flour walls in the St. Louis city limits, and there are likely a few more out there undiscovered.  One particularly faded specimen located at Virginia and Idaho, in far South St. Louis, asks “Why Experiment With Other Brands?”  In 2007, veteran walldog Lonnie Tettaon was commissioned by the Dogtown Historical Society to “redo” a seriously faded Royal Patent Flour ad on the west wall of the former Central Cash  Grocery & Market on the corner of Central and Wise.  Like other such ads, this one bore the image of a flour sack with plenty of [now] antiquated ad copy. Tettaton repainted the sign in green and yellow colors common to the original layout of Cash Markets, which were a small chain of stores. The restored sign is now a minor landmark in Dogtown.