Painting, Pioneer Flour Mill

Oil painting on cardboard depicting a river in the foreground with bare trees on either bank. There is a mill in the background.

The mill, which was one of two built by Pioneer Flour in San Antonio, was then known as the "Lower Mill" and survives until this day. The company began as the C.H. Guenther Mill by Carl Hilmar Guenther in 1851 in Fredericksburg but moved its operations to San Antonio in 1859. What was known as the "Upper Mill" was built in 1868 but does not survive. In 1878, the company changed its name to C.H. Guenther and Sons after siblings Arthur and Fritz joined the business. The mill in the painting remained a wood structure until 1914 when business was expanded and a new concrete and steel structure was built.