Roger Flesner sometimes serves as a guide for the Prairie Mills Windmill. He also just happens to be the mayor of Golden, a small town in western Illinois’s Adams County.

The Prairie Mills Windmill is a Dutch smock windmill and is the only U.S.-built windmill operating with its original millstones and wood mechanism in downstate Illinois.

The story of the windmill is fascinating. The one that now stands is actually the third and final windmill Hinrich Reemts “H.R.” Emminga built. He was born in the Holtrop-Wiesens area of Ostfriesland. He trained as a millwright in his native Germany, then emigrated to the Golden area in February 1852.

“He built a one-stone (custom) windmill, then went back to Germany,” Roger explained. The first one-stone windmill was completed in 1854 and was located about 1.5 miles northeast of Golden.

In 1863 he sold the windmill to the John Franzen family. They continued milling with it until around 1930, and Henry Bruns purchased, then razed, it in 1934.

After returning to Germany in 1863, Emminga began construction of his second windmill in Felde, which he completed in 1866. He operated it for the next five years. According to Roger, this mill still stands and is nearly identical in size and construction to the Prairie Mills one.

In 1872 the Emminga family returned to the United States and built a three-stone windmill. They chose the area because “the land here was like the land in Germany,” Roger said.

Construction of the mill began in August 1872, and was completed a year later with two sets of millstones. Milling operations began on Sept. 1, 1873, with the third set of millstones added in August 1874.

“The trees to build this are all from this area. The gears are made from hard maple. The stones are volcanic from France,” Roger explained, saying when the 5,000-pound stones (each) were hauled from Quincy after coming up the Mississippi, they traveled by ox cart.

As for the mill, “there are no nails in the mill, it is all just pegged.”

Emminga made a go of the mill without cash, receiving a percentage of the grain from the farmer as his milling fee. He received one pound of corn for every five pounds the farmer brought in. For smaller grains like wheat, buckwheat, rye and graham he received one pound of grain for every six pounds.

Prairie Mill stone-ground flour products were exported around the world and in 1874 the flour even won first prize in a St. Louis competition for best on the market. Emminga turned the mill over to his son in 1878, then returned to Germany until his death on Nov. 23, 1886. His son, H.H., operated the windmill until his death on Dec. 9, 1915, when his son, John, took over.

H.H. improved the mill, adding a steam elevator that Roger said was just recently torn down. In March 1922, John and F.B. Franzen, grandson of the original purchaser of the Custom Mill, combined the Prairie Mill and Custom Mill to become the Consolidated Cereal Co. John sold his interest in the company a year later.

The Prairie Mill continued to operate as a wind-powered mill until 1924 after a storm tore off two of the four sails. After this, Franzen modified the windmill to operate using a 30-hp gasoline engine. Milling continued under gasoline power until approximately 1930 when all operations ceased.

The windmill then had several owners who used the mill as a supper club, home and tavern. The doors closed for good in the early 1980s and the mill quickly deteriorated. Roger said when there was word that someone from out of town was going to buy the mill, locals got together in 1986 and put up a deposit to buy it.

They formed the Golden Historical Society with the plan to purchase and restore the mill. In 2002, the group successfully ground grain there for the first time since its restoration.

Tours of the mill and museum are available from May-October on Saturdays and Sundays from 1-4 p.m. Tours are also available by appointment. Log onto www.goldenwindmill.org for details.

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication. Learn more of Cindy’s finds and travel in her blog, “Traveling Adventures of a Farm Girl,” at http://travelingadventuresofafarmgirl.com