This collection documents the history of Farmland Industries, Inc. from Howard A. Cowden's idea to establish Cowden Oil Company in 1928, through the dissolution of the company in 2004.
The Union Equity series is comprised of 14 boxes. It includes Articles of Incorporation, By-Laws, correspondence, export records, financial and audit records, meeting minutes, meeting agendas, speeches, publicity materials, printed material, audiovisual materials, and photographs.
Women's Cooperative Guild series is made up of five (5) boxes and one (1) box is shared with the Farmland Artifacts series. It includes annual reports, correspondence, financial records, member records, meeting minutes, newsletters, photographs, scrapbooks, yearbooks, and artifacts.
Contained in 126 boxes, the Farmland series is the largest in the collection. It is made up of corporation records, correspondence, financial records, historical records, photographs, negatives, slides, printed material, and scrapbooks. The corporation records include Corporation By-Laws, annual reports, annual meetings, conferences, minute books, Dreyer Award winners, Ampride Incorporation merger with Farmland, Farmland Food Services, Farmland World Trade Company, and Tier II Emergency and Hazardous Chemical Inventory Reports at various locations. Historical records follow the history of Farmland from Cowden Oil Company (1928) through name changes and the dissolution of the company (2004). They also include the history of the changes of the Farmland logo. There are photographs, negatives, and slides of board members, Dreyer Award winners, and employees and non-employees filed in alphabetical order. A possible photograph of interest is of Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. Other photographs, negatives, and slides include annual meetings (1944-2001), Coffeyville Petroleum Coke to Ammonia Project, Co-Op displays, Farmland food plants, Farmland Headquarters, Phillipsburg Refinery, Youth Camp, baseball players, football players, hockey players, barbed wire, barges, cattle, farm meetings, feed mills, feeding containers, fertilizer plants, food storage containers, glo-candles, grease plant, heaters, hogs, horses, landscapes, laundry detergent, livestock shows, paint plant, pipelines, print plant, propane plant, refineries, sheep, soy plants, storage tanks, trains, trucks, warehouses, and warehouse fires. There is also a photo book of Consumers Cooperative Association. Printed material consists of articles, brochures, catalogs, essays, magazines such as Leadership, training manuals, manuscripts, music, newsletters such as Farmland News and Inside Farmland, news releases, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, reports of fertilizer plants and pork processing plants, speeches and radio addresses by Howard A. Cowden, Homer Young, and others and educational and training materials. There are five (5) scrapbooks in this series. Photographs in the scrapbooks include an ammonium phosphate plant in Joplin, Missouri, Coffeyville Refinery, Farmland Headquarters, Lawrence Nitrogen Plant, Phillipsburg Refinery, annual meetings, Co-Op transportation vehicles, feed mills, and warehouses.
Cooperative Refinery Association (CRA) series is made up of one (1) box. It includes information pertaining to the Coffeyville and Phillipsburg, Kansas refineries, CRA meeting minute books (1939-1981), and CRA of Peru, Inc.
Consumers Cooperative Association (CCA) series is comprised of three (3) boxes and one (1) partial box that is shared with CFCA series, Union Oil Company series, and Agricultural Hall of Fame series. It includes the organization's Administrative Orders, Articles of Incorporation, correspondence, conferences, farm program and problems, history of the organization, lists of Board of Directors, minutes, policies, list of personnel, speeches by Howard A. Cowden, subsidiary reports, printed material, and information regarding the Howard A. Cowden Scholarship & Memorial Fund. The one (1) partial box consists of the history of the organization including photographs of laying of the cornerstone of the office building located at 3315 North Oak Trafficway, Kansas City, Missouri, the Neighbor Night Program, and audio cassette tapes. The tapes include the 21st Annual Meeting (1949), Neighbor Night meetings (1951 and 1953), the 24th Annual Meeting (1952), the dedication of the nitrate plant (1952), and short recordings of Howard A. Cowden.
Cooperative Farm Chemical Association (CFCA) series is stored in one (1) box and one (1) partial box shared with the CCA series, Union Oil Company series, and Agricultural Hall of Fame series. It includes Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws, annual stockholders meetings and minutes, correspondence, newspaper clippings, revolving fund certificates (1959-1985), and photographs and printed material of the dedication of the Lawrence Nitrogen Plant, Lawrence, Kansas (1951-1954).
Far-Mar-Co series is contained in two (2) boxes. Included are correspondence to the Board of Directors (1976-1985), news releases, newspaper clippings, and the organization meeting of the incorporators of Far-Mar-Co/Farmland Acquisition Corporation (1976-1980).
Union Oil Company series is housed in one (1) box with CCA series, CFCA series, and Agricultural Hall of Fame series. Included are the Certificate of Incorporation, Articles of Agreement, Affidavit of Dissolution of Cowden Oil Company, correspondence, minutes, magazines and newspaper publicity and advertising, radio talks, and speeches, and three (3) scrapbooks with photographs.
The Agricultural Hall of Fame series is stored in one (1) box with CCA series, CFCA series, and Union Oil Company series. It contains the Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws (1958-1961), newspaper clippings (1980-1990), visitors guides (1960-1981), photographs, printed materials with titles such as "What's the Agricultural Hall of Fame Development Program All About?" and "How Farmers Can Take Part in Building the Agricultural Hall of Fame Through Their Local Cooperatives."
Stored in five (5) boxes and two (2) shared boxes and five (5) oversize items, the Farmland Artifacts series contains awards, a keychain that reads "Farmland, Proud to be Farmer Owned," a coffee cup that reads "Co-Op Quality Paint," a deck of playing cards that reads "Co-Op Feed Mill Dedication, Farmland Industries, Inc.," golf tees, paperweights, wooden gavel, a red and white apron that reads "Use Co-Op Products," and a color plate of Co-Op Red and Co-Op Blue. The series also includes one (1) ceremonial shovel dated December 1, 1959, a Recognition Board that reads in part "In Recognition Members of the Original Consolidated Board of Directors of FAR-MAR-CO, Inc." with a list of board members dated June 1, 1968-March 1969, and a silver metal sign that reads "Consumers Cooperative Association" with a list of board of directors dated 1956. It also includes a Bell & Howell Model 1550B 16mm film projector. Note one shared box is with the Women's Cooperative Guild series and the other shared box is with the Farmland Industries series.
Farmland Oversize series are stored in nine (9) boxes and two (2) map cabinet drawers. Included are advertising posters, newspaper clippings, bound advertising pages, photographs, calendars, two (2) scrapbooks, Ken Burdette Sketches, a drawing of Farmland Foods Plant, banners, blueprints, and watercolor paintings. The advertising posters include wheat, farm fuel, and John Denver's TV Special, Farmland Mission Statement, and Farmland Service Pledge. The photographs include aerial photographs, photographs of Howard A. Cowden, barges, harvesting, CCA, National Ag Center, Phillipsburg Refinery, annual meetings (1937-1953), Farmland oil products, and crops. The two (2) scrapbooks contain Co-Op Store Campaign Advertisements and information on presenting Farmland Industries. There are three (3) Ken Burdette sketches. One of Arthur Capper, one of Andrew Volstead and the third of is the mural that was inside the Farmland Headquarters reception area. There are six (6) banners in this series. One banner is painted on oilcloth and reads "Kansas Grassroots Says Stop Floods and Drouth The Watershed Way." Another banner is painted on canvas and reads "Funds Flow Chart, Consumer Cooperative Association, 1947." The other four (4) banners are vinyl and they promote the Phillipsburg Refinery, Farmland, Co-Op, and AG 21. Included in the blueprints are those of Farmland Headquarters and complex and warehouse additions in Iowa and Colorado. There are two (2) watercolor paintings. One of Heartland Wheat Growers Wheat Starch and Gluten Production facility in Russell, Kansas, and the other of the Portland Head Lighthouse.
The Audio-Visual Materials series is stored in 36 boxes and there are loose items on five (5) shelves. Included are 16mm films, CDs, cassette tapes, filmstrips, LPs, and VHS tapes. The 16mm films include films on annual meetings, sales rallies and have titles such as "The is Far-Mar-Co," "Your Cooperative Federation," "Helping You Help Yourself," "You Are Not Alone," "Service From the Ground Up," "Farmland Trails," "Ham to Hot Dogs," and "Better Farming Better Food." There is also a 16mm film of Howard Cowden speaking at a CFCA cornerstone ceremony in Lawrence, Kansas, and of Jim Henson's "Muppets Meeting Films" (1979). The CDs contain a PowerPoint presentation of the Farmland Headquarters Visitor Center, photographs, annual meeting information, Bob Honse images, national beef images, annual reports, history of Farmland (1969-2000), and the Dreyer Awards. Cassette tapes include the Bunny Farm Rabbit Feeding program, annual meetings, shareholders meetings, monthly dairy meetings, and youth leadership conferences. The filmstrips include Neighborhood Councils, refinery news, and the cooperative centennial (1844-1944). There are LPs of 78 RPM and 33 1/3 RPM in this series. They include radio messages and addresses of Howard A. Cowden and Chuck Miller, Co-Op Neighbor Night Program, Battle Hymn of Cooperation Consumers Co-Operative Association Quartet, and annual meetings. The largest section of audiovisual materials is the VHS tapes. Tapes include special events, motivational tapes, annual meetings, employee meetings, Fieldmen's conferences, food safety, pesticides, Coffeyville Refinery tour, quarterly meetings, news broadcasts about Farmland, Coffeyville oil spill, training videos, sales rallies, speeches, and presentations of Harry D. Cleberg, Dreyer Awards, Farmland Industries Project Tomorrow, grain grading, shareholders meetings, Foods Media Shows, Heartland Wheat Growers, and restructuring Farmland. VHS tapes that may be of interest are those of Senators Nancy Kassebaum and Robert "Bob" Dole. Other VHS tapes include voice demos from individuals such as Sam Beck, Bob Benish, Jr., Carla Cooper, Kimball Cummings, Jack Elliott, T. Max Graham, Barbara Houston, Randy Kemp, Mark Mason, Don Miller, Jim Scott, and many others.
There are nineteen shelves of printed material that are bound volumes. The bound volumes are <emph render='italic'>The Daily Scoop, Inside Farmland, Farmland Circles, Co-Op News Digest, Leadership, Bulletin, Teammates, The Cooperative Farmer, Co-Op Reporter, The Cooperative Consumer, Insider, Managers Newsletter, Advantage, The Plant Connection, Farmland Supervisor, and Home-Maker. Note The Cooperative Consumer name changed to Farmland in September 1966 and Farmland changed to Farmland News in 1971.
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