The Fenton Mill Legacy continues nearly 90 years later

By Sharon Hallack The Oceana Echo Community Correspondent

With a 150th anniversary celebration on tap for August 20, history is “ripe in the land of Mears,” as they say. One of the oldest buildings and businesses in town is located just behind the main street. The historic “Fenton Mill,” as it is known by the locals, is a beautiful brick building estimated to have been built between 1890 and 1900 by Frank Downing. It was first used as a farm hardware and supply store.

Now “the mill” is home to Fenton Receiving and Trucking, a business that has been in their family since the 1930s. “It was a farm hardware and farm supply store and used to pack out fruit to be shipped by train,” said Dave Fenton, co-owner with brother Dan Fenton. “The main part of town used to be located close to the mill.”

Fenton and his brother acquired the building and business from their father, Clifton, who acquired it from his father, Frank. There is so much history at the location that it was hard for Fenton not to get ahead of himself.

Family history records that Frank Fenton started out in town working for area farmers before becoming a partner in George Reid’s grocery store business. He would have several other privately owned businesses through the years, including a meat market, a blacksmith shop and a mechanical garage.

Then, in 1934, the M. Steffens Company, out of Chicago, hired Grandpa to build a cider mill in Mears. The cider mill would take in apples from surrounding farmers and make what was called “vinegar stock,” or raw cider, that was sold to various companies for processing into vinegar. The stock would be loaded onto big train tankers and shipped to Chicago. At that time, the mill probably had 10 huge cider vats holding 60,000 gallons each,” Fenton said. “Then, when rail service to and from Mears ceased in the 60s, they switched from rail tankers to truck tankers, shipping the stock on to Coloma and eventually to Indian Summer in Belding, Mich.”

According to family history recorded some time ago by the Fenton’s aunts, Jeannette (Fenton) Lipps and Violet (Fenton) Frost, once the cider mill was operational, the M. Steffens Co. began exploring the pickle industry, and pickle seed was supplied to area farmers on a contract basis. Once the pickles were harvested, they were purchased by the company and shipped out by Frank Fenton’s private truck. Due to the demand for seasonal workers to harvest the pickles, Frank worked with the county extension agent to contact the Texas Chamber of Commerce, which resulted in some of the first migrants entering Oceana County. Hispanic families would correspond with “Mr. Frank” during the winter months, asking for work in fruit or pickles. He helped place families according to their size and the work needed.

“My dad, Cliff, would talk about how as a kid the train would go through Mears on its way to Pentwater and back, several times a day. That would have been the 30s,” Fenton recalled. “The train stopped right here on the East side of the building.”

By the 1940s, the operation was packing out pickles in barrels of salt water, which were shipped by rail to Chicago as well. “During World War II, grandpa used the POWs (Prisoners of War) encamped at the Oceana County Fairgrounds. He would drive a panel wagon over every day and pick up eight to nine men to run the mill and pickle station for the day. Grandma would make them a good lunch every day, and one of the prisoners commented one day, ‘We never had chicken like that in Germany.’”

In 1946, Frank’s sons, Clifton and Norman Fenton, who had been serving during WWII, took over mill operations from their father and renamed the business Fenton Brothers.

In the 1950s, Fenton Brothers had begun receiving locally grown cherries and crabapples, which were delivered to DeWan’s in St. Joseph, Mich., and later to Coloma, Mich., as juice stock for M. Steffens as well.

With asparagus being the up-and-coming crop in the 1960s, the brothers started receiving asparagus at the mill, as well as sweet cherries for Liberty Cherry out of Buckley, Michigan. The cherries were held in totes of brine located at the mill until they were shipped out for processing.

By the 1970s, the Fenton Brothers operation was one of the largest receivers of apples in the area. Photos of those years show trucks lined up for blocks or parked for the day, waiting to be unloaded. “It was at that time we also started running the ‘pit station’ on the East side of town for Gray and Company. Eventually our sons and nephews would all work on what became known as the ‘pit crew’ in the 1990s and 2000s,” said Fenton. Referred to as “the pits”, this operation is now owned by Gray & Company’s successor, Seneca Foods.

In the early 1980s, Dave and Dan Fenton completely took over mill operations from their father,