A look back 30 years ago.

1981 Year in Review

Total sales were $1,142,000 with sales averaging about $95,250 per month. At this time, the Mill experienced explosive growth from prior years. From 1980 to 1981 orders grew 41% and topped the million dollar mark for the first time in the Mill’s history. Beckstoffer’s sales grew more than 200% since 1971.The best month for sales was May, followed by February. December was uncharacteristically slow.

The contractor with the most purchases in dollar value was Heinol-Evans Construction, then Taylor & Parrish (T&P). The largest order at Beckstoffers that year was for $123,570 to Heinol-Evans for the Chesterfield Mall Office Park in May 1981. T& P placed the most orders (14), followed by Conquest, Moncure & Dunn (11).

The following is a list of some of the more noteworthy orders that year with the Contractor’s name in parenthesis:

• Federal Reserve Bank (Taylor & Parrish) 
• Museum of the Confederacy (Taylor & Parrish)
• Fife and Drum (Taylor & Parrish)
• VEPCO Admin Building (Bass Construction)
• Capital Savings & Loan (Kayhoe Construction)
•  Richmond Memorial Hospital (Miller Manufacturing)
• Autumn Leather Shop & Porcelain Gallery (J.B. Violette Construction)
• Jewish Community Center (Kenbridge Building. Systems
• Providence Hall (Taylor & Parrish)
• Mt. Calvary Chapel Mausoleum (Heinol-Evans)
• E.C. Robins Residence (Taylor & Parrish)
• A.H. Robins - Office Expansion (Taylor & Parrish)
• G.C. Carver School (G.E. Peterson Construction)
• Andrews Job (Ross A. Hotchkiss, Jr.)

In terms of employees, they generally had 11-13 workers in the shop, 2 men in the yard and 2 truck drivers handling deliveries. Payroll for the shop, yard men and the truck drivers totaled $166,253.92 for the year. In addition to the employees mentioned above, there were four regular office staff. Finally, there were three other officers drawing a salary, namely William Beckstoffer, Richard Beckstoffer and George Helfert. It’s unclear who had what roles, but jobs were performed among this group to handle sales, billing, and accounting.

Looking back 40 years

1971 in Review
Total orders for 1971 were $488,573, which was an average of $40,783 per month in sales. This was the third year in a row of growth, with millwork orders increasing 11% over the prior year and more than double the sales from 1961.

December saw the most sales, which was very common at Beckstoffers. Total sales were $101,746, which was $43,000 over next highest month. The highest dollar value for an order was placed by contractor Kjellstrom & Lee in December for $59,501 of millwork for Richmond Memorial Hospital. This was located on Westwood Avenue in Richmond’s Ginter Park area.

Contractor Herman F. Blake placed the highest number of orders – 28. All of these were for newly constructed homes and the orders averaged about $2,700 per address.

Some of the notable orders that year were a US Post Office Addition in Petersburg (Hendrick Construction), Redeemer Lutheran Church (Barker Construction), two small orders for American Tobacco Company at 400 Jeff Davis Highway (Taylor & Parrish), the Multiphasic Screening Unit at Medical College of Virginia or MCV (Century Construction), The Rountowner Motor Inn in Williamsburg (Philip Richardson Company), Henrico Parrish Church-St. John's (Davis & Spiers), an order for the Virginia Orthopedic Association (Kayhoe Construction), the President's office at the University of Richmond Admin Building (Taylor & Parrish), Sunset Hills Baptist Church located at the intersection of Horsepen & Patterson (Century Construction), a Racquet Club at 6200 West Club Lane (Kayhoe Construction), Non Commission Officer’s (NCO) Building #2101 at Camp Pickett, VA (Payne Construction)and Toy Maker's Shop #8 (Philip Richardson Company).
Records were not available for the number of employees working at the Mill.