Beautifully engraved SPECIMEN certificate from the American Maize-Products Company. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company in the 1920's and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the Amaizo Brands logo.
Certificate Vignette American Maize-Products Company is a domestic company engaged in the corn wet milling business and the manufacture and sale of tobacco products. The corn wet milling business involves the manufacture and marketing of corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch and other corn derivatives. During 1994, production at the company's Hammond plant was the second highest level ever in the company's history. Tobacco products include cigars and various smokeless tobacco products. The company decided to combine their two tobacco businesses into one unit. This action occured during the second quarter of the year, with Helme Tobacco Company merging into Swisher International, Inc. Corn products accounted for 73%/65% of 1994 revenues/operating income and tobacco products, 27%/35% AMAIZO also known as the American Maize Products Company. Maize is the Native American word for corn, for which the plant turns into a long list of various products for commercial and industrial uses. The company is located along the banks of Wolf Lake in the Roby section of the city. Construction of the facility began in 1906 by a group of men from Chicago. The company was first organized as the Western Glucose Company. However the building of the plant was halted due to financial difficulties. Later in 1907 the Royal Baking Powder Company acquired controlling interest and completed the factory and changed the name of the company to American Maize Products. In 1908 the American Maize Products Company began operation in February of that year with a capacity of 10,000 bushels. The plant gradually increased its operations, where in the mid 1930's they had a capacity of 35,000 bushels of corn. The company produced a complete line of consumer goods for home consumption. Those products included Salad Oil, Corn Starch, Golden Syrup, Crystal White Syrup, Butterscotch Syrup and Gloss Starch. On the commercial/industrial end, the plant produced Corn Sugar, Corn Starch, Corn Syrup, Corn Oil, Gloss Starch, Adhesives, Dextrines, Lactic Acid, Calcium Lactate and Cattle Feed. The products of Amaizo were sold over much of the country and exported as well. The more modern day method of making corn into corn meal is very different of the earlier days, when corn was ground by mill stones turned by water power, or the simple and time consuming job of pounding grains in a hollow log with stones the way Native Americans once did. Around the time of 1934 American Maize Products gave employment to some 850 workers. When the factory was fully operational, it ran twenty-four hours a day in three eight hour shifts. Below is a group of photos showing the outside of the plant and the inside of company's laboratories sometime during the 1960's.