A Short Story About Our Long History

A young man working in a lumber yard wanted to make a better life for himself and his family. He saw an opportunity - the lumber yard considered their sawdust scrap. However, the local butchers in the stockyards, meat markets and taverns needed it for clean-up and picked it up on a regular basis.

The young man’s name was Frank Miller and the year was 1889 in Chicago, Illinois. He wondered if he bought a horse and wagon and delivered the sawdust, would they buy from him? Miller Sawdust opened for business with the purchase of the latest in express transport (depending on the horse). Over the years, his sons joined him in the business and it didn’t take long before they were known locally as “The Sawdust Millers”. (The potato growers in the neighborhood were “The Potato Millers” - just to keep everyone straight!)

The company gradually evolved from distributing sawdust, to manufacturing quality sweeping compounds, to manufacturing specialty cleaning compounds and ice melt. We currently have two facilities, in Riverdale, Illinois and Sturgis, Michigan. Today, the tag is ”The Ice Melt Millers” and with a brand new manufacturing plant in Sturgis, we are always ready for winter! Just think, our delivery area in the 1890’s was as far as the horse could take us in a day. Now we ship all around the world, Canada, Mexico and overseas. What would Frank think about that?

We have consistently built our reputation as a leading source for superior performance maintenance products. With over 100 years of experience, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish. With the third generation currently at the helm and the fourth always trying to tell him what to do (“Say, what do you think of an ice melt production plant in Aruba?”), we are going strong!

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Riverdale, IL 60827   ·   Sturgis, MI 49091