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Territorial Enterprise, circa May 20, 1864

Anticipating the Gridley Flour Sack History

Over $500,000 may be raised upon it [the Gridley sack of flour] if the principal cities are well "starred" - thus:

Austin - $5,335
Gold Hill - 6,600
Silver City - 1,800
Dayton - 1,875
Virginia City - 13,000
Nevada - 10.000
Placerville - 10,000
Auburn - 5,000
Grass Valley - 10,000
Marysville - 15,000
Sacramento - $20,000
San Francisco - 50,000
New York - 100,000
Philadelphia - 100,000
Boston - 50,000
Chicago - 50,000
Cincinnati - 50,000
St. Louis - 50,000

Total - $546,610

Now supposing that the managers of the St. Louis Fair are smart enough to have this historical sack of flour ultimately made into thin wafer cakes - 500 to the pound - it strikes us that 25,000 people would willingly give $5 a cake for it, if only for the sake of telling their children and friends that they had eaten a cake made out of flour that had sold for over $500,000 per sack! This would add $125,000 to the receipts, making the total amount received upon the 50-pound sack of Sanitary flour swell to the enormous sum of $671,610! It is to be hoped that this possible history will become altogether true, as it already is in part.

(Reprinted in San Francisco Bulletin, May 26, 1864, p. 2.)

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