Cattle Headquarters

ABOUT US…our family and feed sacks

When I first started collecting feed sacks, I didn’t know that my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather Will Ward and his wife Susannah were millers. They built a flour mill on Cane Creek near Snow Camp, North Carolina between 1750 and 1770. He lived to be 80 years old - unheard of at that time. We recently found bits of feed sacks in the mill, which is still standing – a testimony to their craftsmanship.

At first, they carried their grain, feed and seed in wooden barrels, boxes, and tins. Once New England fabrics became cheaper than imports and the sewing machine was invented, the family started using cloth sacks. In the 1880s, M. Hurd of Auburn, New York, patented a machine to make cloth flour sacks. Bag companies, such as the large Bemis Bros. of Minneapolis, Minnesota, sprang up. According to Anna Lue Cook, the most popular sacks were flour, sugar, feed, seeds, rice, and fertilizer. The fabric companies hired designers for the “pretties” or “chicken linen” as it was called.

These fabric designers knew that families like the Wards found creative uses for the cloth bags once they emptied the contents – making pillow cases, boxer shorts, bloomers, curtains, aprons, dish towels, dresses, shirts and quilts from the cotton fabric.

Dad’s father and mother (the great, great granddaughter of the millers Will and Susannah Ward) gave my folks wonderful heirloom quilts made from flour sacks. Mom’s grandmother gave her a beautiful red, white, and blue quilt made from flour sacks, when she was born. It had belonged to her mother before her.

I gained a love of history from my brother, folks, and grandparents. That, and the lure of the great American West, attracted me to spend seven summers working for the Boy Scouts on an active cattle ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. A few were spent living in the backcountry in log cabins without electricity and running water. Without many modern conveniences, we had to be resourceful. We followed the old New England adage…

Eat It Up,
Wear It Out,
Make It Do,
Do Without.

That need to be resourceful and to find creative uses for what we had, has greatly influenced the Cattle Headquarters line. Our offerings started off with feed sack pillow cases. Their simple graphics and lovely logos are a reminder of simpler times in the country. We hope you enjoy using them as much as we enjoy making them.