When visiting the Batavia Depot Museum, visitors can see the history about industry in this Illinois city. Besides some cool history about the Newton Wagon Co. that eventually became the Batavia Body Co., visitors learn that Batavia was known as Windmill City.

At one time six companies were producing hundreds of windmills in this suburb of Chicago. Through a promotional campaign they called “Ringing ‘Em Home,” several windmills made in Batavia have found their way back to the community and are on display throughout the city.

Bob Popeck, Batavia windmill enthusiast, reports, “Private donations from citizens and civic groups helped fund this project, so that no tax dollars were ever spent on the purchase of any of the displayed windmills.”

Windmill History, the second edition, can be picked up from the Batavia Depot Museum – which also houses the Batavia Historical Society. This book offers insight into the history of the windmills and points out where the relocated windmills are so visitors can identify them while traveling around town.

Jeffery D. Schielke, mayor of Batavia said, “The intention is to recapture the windmill dynasty that ran from 1870 to 1974.”

He added it was the water and natural resources that brought the windmill industry to the town.

“They came to take advantage of the water power processes. At that time we were on the western edge of civilization,” he explained.

The U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy captured the history of wind energy on its website: “Since early recorded history, people have been harnessing the energy of the wind. Wind energy propelled boats along the Nile River as early as 5000 B.C. By 200 B.C., simple windmills in China were pumping water, while vertical-axis windmills with woven-reed sails were grinding grain in Persia and the Middle East.”

While it is documented windmills have been used for a variety of purposes, it was the development of the self-regulating windmill by Daniel Halladay in Connecticut in 1854 that automatically adjusted the wheel or blade, without attention by an operator, that changed the way windmills helped in agriculture and transportation. As the popularity of trains grew, placing windmills to provide water for steam engines helped towns/watering stations to spring up, creating new life in western states.

“There was a huge market for farmsteads,” Schielke explained. “Windmills were sent out West and all over the world. A while back, I got a call from a doctor that lived in the outback of Australia and had one of our Batavia windmills.”

The first windmill to come to Batavia was in 1863. Then from 1863-1951 the U.S. Wind Engine Pump Co., Challenge Co., Benjamin Danforth, Batavia Wind Mill Co., Appleton Manufacturing Co. and Snow Manufacturing Co. manufactured them – thus the name Windmill City stuck.

Three of the buildings that produced windmills are still operational: U.S. Wind Engine and Challenge. These are now in use as offices, while the Appleton site is home of the Batavia Government Center.

Today visitors can view 18 windmills, 15 that were built in Batavia, including a rare Pearl Steel model produced by the Batavia Wind Mill Co. Many are located at the Batavia Riverwalk.

Vaneless and those windmills with a vane have quite different appearances. Windmill History describes those with a vane are what are often thought of as the traditional American-style windmill, with the upright wheel arms and solid wheel, like a flower standing straight up. The wheel catches the wind to operate the mill and controls its speed by adjusting its angle to the wind. The side vane works to regulate the wheel’s speed by pushing the wheel away from increasing winds.

The vaneless windmill is more like a Trumpet Vine-type of flower arrangement, with the blades and wheel section turned in. These blades catch the wind to operate the mill and the wheel is divided into sections that open and close like an umbrella.

The windmill weight counterbalances the wind engine directing the points of the wheel into the wind.

While most of the windmills in Batavia are self-regulated, there is one European-style that was moved to the estate of Colonel George Fabyan in 1915. The German-designed Dutch windmill took 18 months to rebuild on-site and is owned by the Kane County Forest Preserve.

This windmill required the assistance of a miller who attached canvas sails to the windmills sail bars to catch the wind. Inside is an area to grind and store grain, with a basement that contains a bakery that may or may not have ever been used.

Schielke said they are trying to profile the history of Batavia and bring tourists to see the windmills and other attractions. More information is available about the windmills at www.bataviahistoricalsociety.org/wmills.htm

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication.