Those murals painted on Mankato grain silos? The owner is shutting down operations there

Ardent Mills will soon shut down a facility in Mankato that employs 44 people.

Operations will wind down over the next eight weeks and end in mid-January, said Kelley Kaiser, a spokeswoman for the Denver-based company on Thursday.

Visitors driving into downtown Mankato are greeted by the company’s 135-foot-tall grain silos, which feature a gigantic mural of dancing Native American children.

Ardent Mills is working with the city to map out what will happen to the mural, Kaiser said.

“We recognize this facility and its cultural ties to Mankato are significant,” she said. “It is our goal to preserve and uphold the wishes of the community members and leaders.”

The city plans to meet with company representatives after Thanksgiving to discuss their transition plan, spokesman Paul David said.

The company said it is closing its Mankato mill because of difficult market conditions “driven by excess capacity in this market and declining regional volume.”

Ardent Mills saw its sales decrease last year, reflecting industry trends, according to a recent financial statement from Conagra, which has a 44% ownership interest in the company. Ardent Mills’ net assets also shrank to $1.43 billion as of last May, down from $1.72 billion a year earlier.

Ardent Mills closed four flour mills in Minnesota in 2019. A joint venture of Cargill, Conagra and CHS Inc., the company has about 40 locations in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. In May, the company appointed Sheryl Wallace as CEO, a month after the retirement of Dan Dye who spent a decade in that role.

The mill in Mankato dates back to 1878, when it began milling wheat into flour using grindstones, according to a history on the Ardent Mills website.

The first telephone in Blue Earth County was installed in the mill in early 1880, linking the plant to Mankato’s City Hall, the website said. The mill also helped Mankato residents in 1908 when it shared clean water from its private water wells during a typhoid epidemic.