The mill in Piatta was established in 1949 at the initiative of a private citizen who, after reading an advertisement in “Il Corriere della Valtellina,” decided to set it up in the Piatta hamlet to alleviate the hardships faced by rye farmers. Until then, these farmers had to travel to Bormio or Cepina to process the excellent grain grown on the slopes of the village. Pio Canclini, the protagonist of this small revolution, contacted the company’s representative and personally verified the mill’s operation before signing the purchase contract. On October 17, 1949, the mill was installed in the house of his sister Caterina Canclini and was blessed with an official ceremony on the day of its inauguration.
The mill operated electrically, providing great convenience for the inhabitants of Piatta by saving time and replacing some manual labor with mechanical processing. Harvesting rye was very labor-intensive: the ears of grain were cut with a sickle and bundled into sheaves tied at both ends with intertwined ears. Every ten sheaves formed a “decima” (from which the name “tabiato delle decime” originates—the Combo barn where the decima of grains was collected, demanded annually by a communal officer called the canipario on behalf of the municipality and the church). The decime were left to dry in the fields before being brought to the barn, where they were spread out and beaten with the eskut (a type of flexible stick) to release the grains.
Children cleaned the grains by removing the black ones (ergot-infected rye), which were poisonous and destined for the pharmacy but are still used today in medicinal preparations. This work was done by hand until after 1950, when it was mechanized with a threshing machine. The cleaned grains were then taken to Mr. Pio’s mill. Built with “a double elevator with automatic loading” and equipped with a “sieve with tight oscillating planes allowing for all flour separations,” the mill had a flour yield of around 70-73%.
The mill remained in use for many years but was eventually decommissioned due to the gradual abandonment of rye cultivation. Nevertheless, it stands as a forward-thinking example of private enterprise serving the entire community.
