With our Grand Opening & Dedication behind us we continue to scramble to get everything done that remains unfinished. It has not happened over night but we are making progress. Our goal is to finish things this summer. We appear to be on track.

 

It is not our intention to have the largest collection nor one consisting of one of a kind mills. There are plenty of others out there driven by such goals. Consistent with the overall intention of our windmill websites, we are focused on the casual collector and restorer and hope to create and assist entry level endeavers.

 

One of our winter 2009 projects was placing our 10ft Eclipse Type P atop its tower. It was restored by Dan Benjamin of Windmills-R- Us and is beautiful! We are now focused on assembling the wheel for our 10ft Fairbury No.7 Micheal Porterfield, of Prarie Legend Windmills, restored for us. It is a unique mill that turned out great. Our Elgin #2, Bobtail Raymond & Challenge Vaneless, as restored by Loren Lockman of Double L Windmills,  are worth the visit alone. We just completed restoration of our Red Cross and Original Star wooden wheel mills. They, along with 3 other wood wheel mills, are displayed in our indoor area. We acquired an unknown and unusual 12ft wooden wheel this past winter that we also have on display in the barn. Two group work days were scheduled for June & July to insure all our mills are on their towers in time for our 4th Annual Fall Festival. On 6/19/10 we placed all our remaining restored mills on their towers. Our July work day will focus on completing wheel and vane placements for those mills.

 

We are currently open Friday's, Saturday's & Sunday's through the summer months, or by chance or appointment on other days. Admission will always be FREE. Feel free to call us ahead of time once you know your visit schedule.

 

Over the past 4 years much has been achieved. The land was secured, the park meadow cleared, perimeter fence installed and a small reception building, large display barn & storage shed completed. Gathering and restoring our collection has been a huge group effort. Installations began many months ago on the first 47 mills being moved to the property. All but 2 towers are now in place with more to be erected as we progress. We started installing the heads on 4/19/09 and had the first 26 complete mills in place as of 7/27/09. Michael Porterfield of Praire Legends Windmills in Choctaw, OK was instrumental in our stretch run progress.  Our indoor display facility is complete with 5 short towers erected inside that recieved their mills in early June 2010. A number of windmill weights and rare tail vanes are already hung for display, and we have hung a large group of the hundreds of vintage pictures and windmill collectables that will also be available for viewing. We completed clearing an additional 1 acre in Oct. '09 making room for our A-612, 8ft Xray, 6ft Dempster #7, and 5ft Star 37 mills. Those towers are now erected with the Zephyr & Dempster #7 mounted and spinning in the breeze. Additional clearing will take place during the fall of 2010 for future additions. Our latest addition to our collection is a 10ft OK wood wheel mill.

 

Mills included currently in our collection are noted below.  The asteric * indicates those mills now on display. We have posted pictures below of many in our collection and as shown the change of seasons brings a new perspective to each of these historical treasures.

 

8ft 402 R.A. Pumping Aermotor*

8ft A-502 Aermotor*

10ft B-602 Aermotor*

8ft A-612 Aermotor*

6ft X-702 Aermotor*

6ft X-802 Aermotor, Valley Industries*

10ft Althouse Wheeler Bobtail Raymond*

5 1/2ft Baker Heller-Aller Run in Oil*

8ft Heller-Aller Direct Stroke Wind Engine*

10ft Challenge Vaneless*

10ft Challenge D.S. Solid Wheel*

8ft Challenge 27*

6ft Currie Open Gear*

8ft Currie Oil-Bath*

8ft Dandy*

10ft Dempster #4*

6ft Dempster #7*

8ft Dempster #8*

8ft Dempster #10*

8ft Dempster #11*

6ft Dempster #12*

8ft Dempster #12A*

8 1/2ft Eli*

10ft Elgin #2*

8ft 1893 Fairbanks Steel*

10ft Fairbanks-Morse Eclipes Type P*

10ft Fairbury 7*

6ft Fairbury/Michler Pioneer*

10ft OK

10ft Original Star*

8ft F & W Star 12*

5ft F & W Star 37 Zephyr*

6ft Freeman Clipper*

8ft I.X.L.

8ft Kenwood Open Gear*

5ft Monitor V*

8ft Monitor K*

10ft Monitor L*

6 1/2ft Monitor Hambone*

6 1/2ft Monitor WB*

8ft Parish*

10ft Red Cross Solid Wheel*

6ft Samson Steel*

10ft Woodmanse Steel Direct Drive*

8ft Woodmanse AirMaster*

8ft Woodmanse Steel*

8ft XRAY*

 

Unfinished mills currently being restored include an 8ft IXL and a 10ft OK, the late being wooden wheel mill being restored by our local team.