I am very familiar with Acco feeds. In fact we still haul ingredients into their plant in Seguin, Texas and haul sacked finished feeds out of there in dry fans. When I started buying and selling feed ingredients in the 1960's, it was still Anderson Clayton.
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/dia01http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02631777#page-1
http://www.accofeeds.com/acco/en/our-story/brand-history/index.jspBack when I sold them grain and ingredients, I used to send bills to their office in Abilene, TX. The whole way ingredients are traded changed in the last 10 or 15 years. Large resellers merchandise trade the ingredients and hire carriers such as us. And the sacked feed is sold to dealers and we haul it for hire. Back in the 60's, I did unload a lot of grain and ingredients at their Abilene plant with my 550 gas GMC. I do remember them having company trucks to deliver finished feed, but I don't remember what kind of trucks they had. GMC aggressively sold trucks to companies like ACCO who owned trucks and weren't really in the trucking business. It could have well been that every ACCO plant had 860's at one time.
An act in 1937 gave the Texas Railroad Commission regulatory powers over trucking. The common carriers were given authority to haul feed from the mills to dealers, but small carriers were restricted against dealer to dealer and were only allowed to go to ranches where the common carriers didn't want to go. By the 50's, common carriers had lost interest in hauling sacked feed, but the regulation still stood. For this reason, feed mills such as ACCO had to have company trucks. In the 70's, the Railroad Commissioner, who was a good friend of my uncle and my father granted me the first statewide authority to haul from dealer as a specialized motor carrier. Soon other carriers got the same authority and feed mills got rid of their trucks. In 1996 the federal government took regulatory powers away from the states and trucking completely changed again.
Seeing all those copper air lines reminds me why I had to learn to flow brass. Vibration used to cause them to split and brazing them was the only option. In the 70's I thought Aeroquip was the answer, but salt got in the braided steel and rotted it. Synflex nylon came out in the late 70's and that fixed it.
