My husband, Nick, and I are newly empty nesters and have decided to lean into to each other’s interests. Nick has long been a collector and restorer of horse-drawn farm equipment and has recently started collecting and restoring windmills from old homesteads. This spring, he was very excited to tell me that the International Windmill Trade Fair was hosting its 35th Annual Meeting in Pipestone, Minnesota. When Nick asked, “Should we go?” I responded with, “Sure, let’s go,” thinking my goal to see a glacier was a bigger endeavor. The Annual Meeting, taking place over a full weekend, included demonstrations, swaps, an auction, and tours of privately restored windmills. In attendance from around the United States was a group of about 150 tightly-knit participants; despite being from all over the country, they know each other well. To get to know us, newbies to the group immediately wanted to know, “How many windmills do you have?” and “Are they up?” To my delight, we quickly learned the answer to “Are they up?” set a status! If someone’s windmills were up, they ranked higher. Nick has about 6 windmills, none of them up. I, however, decided I could claim to have two, one of which was up, by claiming the windmills at Ney!
The Ney Nature Center has a restored Aermotor A702 located next to the Education Building and a second along the hidden windmill trail near the Ney homestead. When Nick and I were volunteers for the organization, we helped reassemble and put the windmill back up next to the Education Building; it had been damaged in a windstorm nearly 10 years prior. The Ney Board of Directors had Geib Well, located in Arlington, replace the tail, also referred to as the vane, and restore a few of the sails on the wheel.
Aermotor is still in existence today, having produced its first windmill in 1888. The A702 is their most common model and first became available in 1933. The A represents the 8-foot diameter of the wheel. Ours was manufactured in Chicago; however, there was an Aermotor sales branch in the Twin Cities. The mechanism at the top is known as the head, ours is an enclosed oilbath, which eliminates the need to climb up and oil it weekly like older open gear models. Today the wheel with the sails, vane, and head could be mechanically functioning if hooked up to a pump rod for pumping water out of the well. This means you will see the wheel turn, the tail spin, and occasionally hear the brake. Some visitors love the ambiance of the windmill movement and sounds, others tell me I should have it oiled, however, as an oilbath head, that is not the proper maintenance.
The second windmill on site here at Ney was not originally known about as the park was forming into a Nature Center. As I know it, the story starts with volunteers and board members walking along the driveway toward the Homestead and hearing mechanical sounds coming from the side of the bluff. They made their way through the vegetation down the bluff to find a windmill turning and making the noise. The windmill was only about a quarter of the way down the hillside and had troughs below the tower. It was already known that the Ney’s grazed livestock along the hillside to utilize the cleared level land for planting crops. The windmill would pump water to the troughs to hydrate the livestock.
Volunteers cleared a trail down to the windmill and back up, naming it the Hidden Windmill Trail. A few years ago, the wheel fell off the windmill and is being stored for a future restoration. Having caught onto Nick’s enthusiasm for windmills, I look forward to putting some work into learning more about the company and model of the second windmill. I hope to maybe even get it put back together so I can say I have two up by the next Windmill Trade Fair Annual Meeting in September of 2025. This meeting will be hosted at the American Windmill Museum in Lubbock, Texas, where Nick looks forward to nerding out over the impressive 170+ restored windmills on display. First, however, is a trip to see glaciers and volcanoes – that is my empty nester goal; with a background in Geology and Earth Science, I plan to nerd out and share my enthusiasm with Nick in Iceland this fall!