American Heritage Windmill History

Colorado ranching family works to keep historic windmill tradition alive for a new generation.

By Christopher Gillis
Updated on October 12, 2022
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by Leslie C. McManus
Colorado rancher Bob Emick's dream came to life this summer during the Windmillers' Trade Fair, when a scene originally photographed more than 140 years in San Diego was re-created at his ranch.

Explore American windmill history with Bob Emick, a Colorado rancher who rebuilt the towering Eclipse windmill pictured here in 1880.

It is interesting what triggers a person’s passion to collect and preserve a piece of American history. For 91-year-old Colorado rancher Robert “Bob” Emick, a decades-long pursuit of resurrecting the country’s earliest and often forgotten water-pumping windmills began in 1981 with the discovery of a photograph showing his Aunt Elizabeth Hasser’s homestead at the turn of the 20th century near Lamar, Colorado. The vintage image showed an original Eclipse windmill next to the house. That was the moment that Bob knew he had to have one of these wooden windmills.

Evidence of the former Eclipse was discovered earlier by Bob’s wife, Helen, when the family garden was prepared. When the soil was tilled, iron pieces were churned up. These happened to be the Eclipse wheel clips that remained after the wood from the mill decayed.

restored windmill outside

The Eclipse windmill was first patented and manufactured by the Leonard Wheeler family in Beloit, Wisconsin, two years after the Civil War. The family sold Eclipse Wind Engine Co. to Fairbanks, Morse & Co., Chicago, in the 1890s. Its solid wooden wheels, made using multiple closely set, thin wooden blades, were manufactured in sizes ranging from 8-1/2 feet to 30 feet in diameter. Hinged wooden tail vanes allowed the mills to be effectively shut off in high winds. Eclipse remained a leading manufacturer of wooden windmills throughout the rest of the 19th century and into the early 20th century.

vintage photo of the original homestead with an old car and windmill.
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