Charles Alfred Pillsbury (December 3, 1842 – September 17, 1899) was an American businessman, flour industrialist, and politician. He was a co-founder of the Pillsbury Company.
Early life
Pillsbury was born December 3, 1842, in Warner, New Hampshire, first of three children born to George Alfred Pillsbury and Margaret Sprague Carleton.[1] His sister Mary A. died in infancy. His brother Frederick Carleton Pillsbury was born in 1852. Pillsbury had a modest upbringing. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1863, paying for his college education by teaching part-time.
Career
Pillsbury worked for six years as a clerk and partner in Montreal, Quebec, Canada at a mercantile enterprise. He was drawn to business in Minneapolis after experiencing and observing the commercial interests in Montreal, which processed grain from the west. Pillsbury's uncle, John S. Pillsbury, had settled at the Falls of St. Anthony at Minneapolis in 1855; in 1869, Charles Pillsbury moved to the growing city of Minneapolis and established his flour business.
At the time of Pillsbury's arrival, four or five flour mills, deriving their power from the Falls, were small in size and ground their grain with large buhr stones.