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Published December 20, 2008, 12:00 AM

Exchange closes its doors


MINNEAPOLIS (AP)- It's the end of an era at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange.

After 127 years of shouts and gestures, the trading floor at the downtown exchange goes silent for good at 1:15 p.m. Friday.

The exchange is shifting the last of its grain trading to computers. Grain trading will continue but no longer on the exchange floor. Instead, traders are shifting to a computerized eighth-floor trading space.

Exchange President Mark Bagan calls it "a very emotional time."

The Minneapolis exchange remains the nation's center for trading spring wheat, the variety of wheat grown in the Dakotas.

The exchange was founded in 1881. Its noisy system of open outcry assured that trades were made in public view, allaying farmers' suspicions about secret deals.