| Additional Information: | A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the Wisconsin Historical Society, State Historic Preservation Office.
STILL EQUIPPED WITH THE ORIGINAL MILLING EQUIPMENT.
The Beckman Mill, now a museum, reminds us that rural industry once relied on the power of running water. Gristmills and sawmills dotted the landscape, putting the energy of rivers and streams to work. Today, few mills remain, and even fewer still function, as the Beckman Mill does. The milldam and millpond on Raccoon Creek date from the 1840s, but the mill itself did not begin its activity until 1868, when millwright William Howe bought the site at a sheriff’s auction and built a gristmill, apparently on the ruins of an old distillery. Catherine Beckmann acquired the property in 1882. Her husband, August, and later their sons operated the mill continuously until 1954, grinding buckwheat, oats, wheat, rye, and barley. “Newark Mills,” as the Beckmans called their business, also became the hub of this rural community, as did gristmills across the country.
Beckman Mill is a three-story utilitarian building with a front-gabled roof and two-over-two windows. Howe constructed it with board-and-batten siding, but in 1924 the Beckman brothers (as they then spelled their name) remodeled the mill with clapboard siding, scored to make the boards appear narrower than they are. They added a shed-roofed addition to the south, housing an auxiliary power source and a storage area, and a lean-to drive-through at the front, sheltering the loading dock.
The mill machinery itself is still operable. Water rushed out of the adjacent millpond, through a flume, and into a turbine pit under the basement at the rear of the building. There, the flow turned two horizontal turbines: a larger 150-horsepower turbine that powered the left set of grinding stones, and a smaller 75-horsepower machine that powered the right. The drive shafts of these turbines rose through the three floors of the building, connecting with cogs and gears to power the millstones. James Leffel and Company built one of the turbines, and the Beloit Iron Works probably built the second. The heavy buhrstones, about 4 feet in diameter, are made of limestone banded with metal.
In 1990, Beckman family members and a dedicated group of Rock County residents banded together as the Friends of Beckman Mill and restored the mill to its appearance in 1925, its heyday. The organization is reconstructing the dam and millpond, which will make it possible to operate the mill with water power. |
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