IL Richer Sangerfield

A recent article in the Norwich Evening Sun concerned the sale of the IL Richer Company to Blue Seal Feeds.

Blue Seal has a feed mill in Bainbridge on the old D&H, pretty far from Sangerfield, but do they have a facility closer to Utica? Any clue (A) the fate of the Sangerfield Richer mill and (B) what the loss of this mill would do to service on the line? At one time not too long ago, I was told that Richer was the biggest customer on the Utica branch....

I.L.Richer was a big customer on the Utica line. When I worked for the NYS&W from 1985-92, I remember a mill in Brisben, Norwich, Sherburne and Clayville. Sangerfield at the time had Agway and Wayne Feeds, which eventually became Richer facilities. I don't recall the fate of the Brisben mill, Norwich was closed and consolidated into Sangerfield and the Norwich facility, which was located at Wood's Corner was knocked down.
Sherburne's facility was on Rt 80 on the northeast quadrant of where the tracks crossed Rt 80. That, too, was knocked down. Clayville's mill is now a craft store or something like that. It is located on Rt 8 between Clayville and Cassville.

A recent conversation I had with a current NYS&W employee thought the purchase by Blue Seal was going to be good for the railroad. Let's hope so.

Well there are not many feed mills left in the area, so the ones that are around must be busy!

Agway in Binghamton is closed now also.

I do not recall a Brisben Mill, there was a farm eqpt dealer there. Greene had a mill but it was not IL Richer but Maxson Feed. The problem in CNY is the decline of dairy farming and agricukture, hence the closure of mills, mostly smaller ones consolidating into bigger operations as the end user market shrinks.

Cactus Jack wrote:I do not recall a Brisben Mill, there was a farm eqpt dealer there. Greene had a mill but it was not IL Richer but Maxon Feed.

Cactus J - (I didn't know a cactus could survive in your part of the world) I do remember Maxon Feed but I'll recheck about Brisben Richer. From what I remember about Brisben, it was a run down place with not much of a facility and business pretty much fizzled out in the mid-1980s. Wonder if it was a team track or something like that and Richer got a car once in awhile there. Wish I had some switch lists that I could put my hands on from those days.

Cactus Jack wrote:The problem in CNY is the decline of dairy farming and agriculture

Hmm, amusingly there's been some noise around lately in regards to 'Peak Food' - i.e. the Green Revolution, which has fed the world's billions and prevented a Malthusian crisis by expotentially increasing crop yields, relied on cheap energy, cheap fertilizer, cheap transport, etc - now with supposed 'Peak Oil', this Green Revolution is over, no more increasing crop yields, and hence...Peak Food.
Whether that is true or not, why is agriculture decreasing in central New York - if nothing else, China will buy any food produce it can get it's hands on to feed it's population...

This is getting off topic, but farming in general in the US is in trouble. Low prices for products, and high prices to produce the product. ie.. Dairy farming, price of milk is roughly the same today as it was 30 years ago, and guess what the price of feed, fuel, and machinery have gone up. Doesn't work well on the bottom line.

Thus things like feed mills, are no longer needed when there are no farms.

FWIW, there were ag/feed mills in West Winfield and North Brookfield both at one time as well. The West Winfield was a GLF, I'm not sure what the other was.

The other mill in West Winfield was Brown Feed.

The mill in North Brookfield was a rather small operation lastly known as Klings Mill

Mills from south to north

Maxon Feed - Grene
Agway- GLF Greene
Brisben - Richer ? - retail only
Oxford - Marshman - receiver & GLF
?? operation from New Berlin located on wye at Norwich
Richer - Woods Corners
Sherburne - Richer & Simons & Mummery in Smyrna ex O&W
Earlville Team Track - served GLF / Agwa on old O&W via truck - retail
Hubbardsville - Jaquay - Hamilton transload, former O&W customer
North Brookfield - Klings
Sangerfield - Agway
Sangerfielod - Blue Seal / Richer
Waterville - Bouckville Mills Bouckville ex O&W
Waterville GLF/Agway
Waterville - Louis Gale
Paris Station - Pugh Retail and Lincoln Davies
Clayville - Richers
Chadwicks - GLF? - Retail
Washington Mills GLF / Agway

Richfield Branch
Bridgewater - can't recall the name
West Winfield - GLF/Agway
West Winfield - Brown
West Winfield - Schoonmaker

South Columbia - forgot the name

Richfield Springs GLF / Agway
Richfield Springs - forgot the guys name

Probably missed a few, sorry I cannot remember South Columbia or the old guy in RSPG