Posts from the ‘Mill Top to Bottom’ Category

The Mill had a 3000 gallon molasses cistern in the basement under the ice cream shop kitchen. The molasses was pumped up to the first floor using the molasses pump and then fed into the molasses blender to make sweet feed for horses. When we built the ice cream shop, code wouldn’t let us have the access in the floor of the kitchen so we had to cut through the wall of the cistern which was a foot thick reinforced concrete.

This is the packing area on the first floor of the Mill. The packer is called a “pair of pants packer” because it could fill two bags at one time. It was fed by a horizontal box which contained a powered auger to feed the grain through the box.

The feed sack sewing machine is part of the first floor museum. I have had people ask me what a feed bag sewer (as in sanitary sewer) is. We are talking about the machine that sews the bags closed. Note the large black counterweight to the left that offset the weight of the machine. Nancy tells a story about Don Larimore who worked at the Mill in the 1950s and visited recently. He sewed his finger into a bag. After a few choice words, he just cut the bag open and tried again. Don also told us about raising ten thousand peeps at the Mill on the third floor and the waste removal challenges.

It seems appropriate for April fools day to talk about the safe. Nancy always introduces the safe as the one Jesse James blew up on his way through town. This was not true but it made a fun story. When we bought the Mill in 2005 the safe was sitting in the middle of the first floor and it took about a year for us to find enough people to move it up against the wall. It was on wheels but it was very heavy. I’m hoping we will find it in the basement when we clean up from the fire. The first time we opened the safe- its entire contents was a roll of masking tape. We assumed the crafters felt that was precious.

The first floor of the Mill was full of wonderful things. It was mostly a museum but we fed people here, had music concerts, displayed Nancy’s collection of feed sack clothes and quilts. It was the home of the big safe and the feed mixer and the Mill equipment museum. I will talk more about it in future pages.

One of the best loved features of the Mill museum was the diorama of Freedom Falls. It was on loan to the Mill by the Pumping Jack Museum and located in the room that connected the Emporium with the first floor Museum.

Before I move on to more of the Mill, I thought I would devote a page to the window dressings for the Emporium. Nancy and Sally Vereb were the ones who put these together with a little lighting help from myself. Nancy learned how to make the snowflakes from U-Tube and found the carolers and snowman.

Nancy Hillwig and Rodney John were both vendors at the Emporium. Nancy did Steelers and crafts and Rodney did beautiful indian jewelry. We also discovered that Rodney and his daughter were musicians and they preformed for us one Saturday night during the 2014 summer season.

Leona Hanna is from Harrisville and does really cool crafts. She has wonderful painted characters on slab wood and had soaps and candles and little owls. She decorates sleds and has something for every season.

Linda Hansford lives in Knox and paints wonderful pictures on slate, wood and canvas. She loves animals and will create a portrait of your favorite animal friend for you. She also makes hand made greeting cards.