Kent State students pass by the towering white structure each time they travel South Water Street to get a tattoo or to hang out at one of two popular bars, JB's and Panini's.

But ask students what the business is, and you'll get many different responses:

"It's an old oil station or gas station, I think," said Jennifer Pederi, a sophomore whose major is undecided.

"It's some kind of factory or something," said sophomore elementary education major Gwen Murphy.

"The only establishments I know around that area are JB's, Panini's and Smokin' Tattoos," said Kyle Lenihan, a senior computer information systems major. "I have no idea what else is down there."

Actually, the white edifice is a silo that holds up to 350,000 bushels of wheat. It is the Williams Brothers Co., Kent's oldest manufacturer and one of the few independent flour mills left in the state.

"Most people do not realize that the Williams Brothers mill is in full action," said Mary Michel, executive director of the Kent Area Chamber of Commerce. "They don't know about the technology that is used there or the type of wheat that they import."

The mill produces about 500,000 pounds of flour each day - but it's not the kind that can be used in homemade bread and cookies. This flour is used to make ice cream cones, crackers and soup thickeners, and the mill's customers include companies like Pepperidge Farms, Archway, Joy Cones and H.J. Heinz.

In an age when the milling industry is ruled by a mighty few, the Williams Brothers flour mill has survived by specializing and maintaining close ties with customers, said owner Peter Williams.

"It's not like we're selling washing machines, where you sell one and you never see that person again," Williams said. "We work with our customers day in and day out."

What they do there

Most of the wheat that is milled at the Williams Brothers plant comes from fields in Northwest and Central Ohio. It is delivered each day in as many as 10 trucks and 15 railcars, each of which holds about 3,000 bushels.

Williams Brothers employs 25 millers, assistant millers, quality control specialists and engineers, who tend to the wheat berry from the moment it is delivered and inspected for nutrient content to the time the flour is separated from the bran.

"Milling is really a reduction process," Williams said. "It's a matter of taking the wheat berry, reducing it and generating different particles and then putting it all back together."

Milling begins in the three-story brick building next to the white silos. There, the wheat is air blown through a series of machines and moved to a "roll room," where it is broken for the first time. The result is a flaky bran and particles of white flour.

The wheat is again moved pneumatically ("by air") to a sifting room, where five large sifters dance and wiggle on rubbery legs, spinning the broken wheat and sifting it through pieces of mesh.

This is the particle separation stage, where the berry is split into its 38 different components and carried away from the bran byproduct through a set of "spouts," one for each wheat particle.

The particles are purified pneumatically and stored.

The bran is moved again to the roll room, where it is broken a second time, transferred to the sifter and stripped of its particles. This process repeats until the bran has been broken five times.

Then, the different particles are mixed together, based on the customer's specifications and the result is a fine, white flour.

The mill produces 15 primary grades of flour, but Williams said a flour can be made "to match anyone's needs."

"A customer will come to me and say, 'What can you do?' I say, 'I'm not going to tell you that. What do you need?'" Williams said.

All in the family

The Williams Brothers mill can hold up to 1.5 million pounds of flour, which is two days of production, at any one time. The flour is shipped as far away as Chicago, but most goes to companies in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

Williams, who is also pursuing a master's degree in community counseling at Kent State, has been in the flour milling business for 20 years.

He replaced his 75-year-old father, Charles, who ran the company for more than 25 years.

On the wall of Pete William's office on the third floor of the mill hangs a portrait of his great grandfather, one of the original Williams brothers who founded the company in 1879 and who bought out his brother after a squabble over how the company should be run.

Today's mill is a lot different from that of the past. The technology used there is cutting-edge, and the mill itself has expanded considerably.

But for the most part, the business operates as it did more than 100 years ago: quietly and efficiently.

"They have just been a quiet success in the community," Michel said. "They have never been a family that likes to be out there showboating, so to speak

"It's just something that's been there so long, you take it for granted," Michel said. "But if it were gone, you'd miss it."