Robert Kinney was born on July 4, 1813, in the town of Belleville in St. Clair County, Illinois, near St. Louis, Missouri.

[6] The year they were married the couple moved to what became Iowa, where they helped found the town of Bloomington (now Muscatine) along the Mississippi River.

[2][9] Kinney left Oregon for the California Gold Rush in 1848, but returned the next year without having gained a large fortune.

[8] After farming for ten years he moved to McMinnville in 1858 where he purchased the flour mill of town founder William Newby in 1859.

[2][8] The company expanded and opened branch offices in San Francisco, Portland, and England, and at one time milled a quarter of all of the grain crops in the state.

[9] Some of Kinney’s sons became partners in the milling business, including Marshall as manager of the San Francisco office.