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.