In the fall of 1881, after Minneapolis surpassed St. Louis as the nation's leading producer of flour, twenty-one prominent businessmen met in the basement of a fledgling bank to create one of the Mill City's most enduring commercial enterprises. Known originally as the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, the Minneapolis Grain Exchange provided a market for most of the grains grown in the rich, dark soil of the Upper Midwest, particularly the much-prized spring wheat. As its members traded thousands, then millions, then billions of dollars in cash grains and futures, the exchange grew into one of the premier grain markets in the world.

“Within the four walls of this [new] building, business will be transacted which will affect the breadstuffs of the world.”
—George A. Pillsbury, 1884,
PRESIDENT, MINNEAPOLIS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE