The Water Mill

       One of the first business enterprises in a pioneer community was the flour mill. Corn could be ground at home, but the milling of flour took more skill and machinery than was ordinarily found on the farm. The early settlers sometimes pooled their capital and labor to build a mill and construct the race, subsidizing the mill owner. The trip to the mill was a regular chore, with the sacks of wheat thrown over a pack saddle or stacked in the bed of a farm wagon. 

       The grain was run between two millstones, made of a special type of granite and weighing more than a ton each. If the granite was not available in the neighborhood, the millstones were transported from long distances. Some of the early millers brought their stones across the mountains on ox wagons. 

       A site near a stream with the proper fall was selected and a mill race dug to conduct the water to the wheel. The wheel was either "overshot" or "undershot," depending on the fall of the stream. Metal was scarce and many of the older mills had no metal in machinery or construction. The cogs which turned the stones were made of wood and the timbers were held together with wooden pegs. Hog fat was used to grease the moving parts. After the grain was ground the bran was separated by screening, and bagged separately. This was used as stock feed. There was no effort made to refine the flour, which retained all the germ and a good deal of the bran, or outer covering of the grain. Bread made from this flour had a flavor and body not easily obtainable today. 

       The miller kept a portion of the grain as his fee and usually sold flour to traders and the village grocery. There is some scientific support of the belief that grain ground by metal burrs loses some of its flavor because of the heat generated in grinding. Stone-ground meal is today regarded as superior to all other. Certainly our memory of homemade bread fashioned of potato yeast and stone-ground flour supports this pleasant conceit.

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Watch the water mill at work...