When I took watercolor lessons, the first scene I
painted was of a windmill at sunset. Not original, nor was it very good, but it was indicative of my love for both
windmills and sunsets. Although they’re difficult to find now, my favorite are the old
wooden-frame style windmills shown in the photo below.
The land on which we live had a metal windmill, now down for repair due to a rude tornado that tore through the orchard. That part of our land has been sold to a neighbor, so it’s no longer our problem. However, I miss looking out the window and seeing that windmill turning. Our windmill was a Chicago Aeromotor, one of the major brands used in in the United States.
The land on which we live had a metal windmill, now down for repair due to a rude tornado that tore through the orchard. That part of our land has been sold to a neighbor, so it’s no longer our problem. However, I miss looking out the window and seeing that windmill turning. Our windmill was a Chicago Aeromotor, one of the major brands used in in the United States.
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| Ranching Heritage Museum, Texas Tech University Lubbock, Texas - photo by author |
I also miss the song
the windmill sings during a breezy day or evening. With the windows open, the
sound is a lullaby at bedtime. Don’t get me wrong, I love modern conveniences,
but they’re a trade-off. We lose something with each part of our past that
disappears.
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| Our former windmill at dawn Photo by Stephanie Smith |
Over 80,000 working
windmills are estimated to be still working now in Texas. You can’t drive on any road
without seeing them in the distance. They are of particular service to ranchers
in the arid regions. Land that once was almost useless to ranchers became
valuable once windmills were erected. The windmill has come to be one of the
symbols of ranching and cowboys. Once I started researching them, I was
surprised the type I have come to love was not as old as I’d suspected.
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| West Texas ranch land - water? photo by author |
Before the introduction of windmills to Texas and the West,
inhabitable land was confined to areas where a constant water supply was
available. There was no way for vast areas to be settled without a life-giving
supply of water. The coming of the windmill made it possible to pump water from
beneath the ground, and soon whole new areas were opened up to settlers. The
first windmills were of the European style, built by Dutch and German
immigrants for grinding meal and powering light industry. What settlers needed
most, however, was a windmill that pumped water.
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| Windmills in Germany Photo from iStock |
Because of its bulk and need for constant attention, the
European windmill was impractical for this purpose. The solution to this
problem came in 1854, when Daniel Halladay (Halady or Halliday) built the first
American windmill in Ellington, Connecticut. He added to his mill a vane, or
"tail," as it was called by cowhands, that functioned to direct the
wheel into the wind. The wheel was a circle of wood slats radiating from a
horizontal shaft and set at angles to the wind, designed so that centrifugal
force would slow it in high winds; thus, the machine was self-regulating and
operated unattended. Its simple direct-stroke energy converter consisted of
only a shaft and a small fly wheel to which the sucker rod was pinned. This
compact mechanism was mounted on a four-legged wood tower that could be
constructed over a well in one day.
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| Steam Locomotive - water required iStock photo |
Railroad companies immediately recognized windmills as an
inexpensive means of providing water for steam engines and for attracting
settlers to semi-arid regions through which they planned to lay track. By 1873
the windmill had become an important supplier of water for railways, small
towns where there were no public water systems, and small farms. Many of the
very early mills were crude, inefficient, homemade contraptions. One of the
popular makeshift mills was a wagon wheel with slats nailed around it to catch
the wind, mounted on half an axle. The axle was fastened securely to a post
erected beside the well. A sucker rod was pinned to the edge of the hub. It was
stationary and worked only when the wind blew in the right direction. The
windmills used later on the big ranches were the more dependable factory-made
windmills.
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| Barbed wire fences changed the West Photo by author |
Windmills moved to the ranches when the use of barbed wire began in the late 1870s.
At first the water holes, springs, creeks, and rivers were fenced, so that the
back lands had no access to water. In the midst of the fence cutting and fighting, some
ranchers began drilling wells and experimenting with windmills. Most of these
experiments were unsuccessful, however, due to lack of knowledge concerning the
proper size of the windmill in relation to the depth and diameter of the well.
One of the earliest successful experiments was made eight miles north of
Eldorado, in Schleicher County, Texas by Christopher C. Doty, a nomadic
sheepman. Doty moved his flock into that area and found abundant water in
shallow wells. By 1882, however, a drought had dried his wells; he ordered a
drilling rig from Fort Scott, Arkansas, bored a fifty-two-foot well, and
erected a Star windmill, which successfully supplied water for his 4,000 head
of stock.
Watering stock with windmills spread rapidly. Eastern land
speculators began buying, fencing, and running stock on the land until it
became ripe for colonization. Among the first of these speculators to
indirectly bring windmills to North Texas was the Magnolia Cattle and Land
Company, organized by Maj. Willa V. Johnson. In 1884 the company bought two-thirds of the state-owned land in
Borden County, land which had natural water resources and had long been
unofficially claimed for grazing by Christopher Columbus Slaughter. When Johnson fenced the land, Slaughter was forced into
the use of windmills to supply water for his cattle. By 1886 the Matador Land
and Cattle Company (where years later my husband’s uncle worked) began using
windmills to water stock.
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| Rock line cabin from the Matador Ranch mentioned below, now on view at the Ranching Heritage Museum, Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX photo by author |
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| Texas windmill - Imagine farming or running cattle on this land without the windmill's life-giving water from Kozzi Photos |
The largest of the Eastern land speculators, the Capitol
Syndicate, began using windmills on its XIT Ranch in 1887. One of their
windmills was believed to be the world's tallest; it was made of wood and was a
total height of 132 feet. A Texas historical marker at Littlefield marks the
site of a replica of the world's tallest windmill built on the XIT Ranch. The
original windmill blew over in 1926. By 1900 the XIT had 335 windmills in
operation.
Not until the King Ranch began extensive use of the windmill in 1890 did that the practice
began to spread rapidly over that area. By 1900 windmills were a common sight
in the Texas and the West. Inhabitable land was no longer limited to regions
with a natural water supply. The windmill made the most remote areas habitable.
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| Pawnee National Grasslands Windmill iStock photo |
The use of windmills brought about two of the most colorful
characters of the West, the driller and the windmiller, and altered the
lifestyle of another, the range rider. The driller was usually a loner and
seldom seen by anyone except the range rider and windmiller. He followed the
fence crews and guessed at where he might find water, then bored wells with his
horse-powered drilling rig. When the driller was successful the windmiller
followed and set up a mill. Owners of the larger ranches usually employed
several windmillers to make continuous rounds, checking and repairing
windmills. The windmillers lived in covered wagons and only saw headquarters
once or twice a month. The early mills had to be greased twice a week, and this
was the range rider's job. He kept a can (or beer bottle) containing grease
tied to his saddle. When he rode up to a mill that was squeaking, he would
climb it, hold the wheel with a pole until he could mount the platform, and
then let the wheel turn while he poured grease over it.
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| Lone range rider - iStock photo |
The range rider was always in danger of attacks from swarms
of wasps, which hung their clustered cells beneath the windmill's platform;
there was the added danger of falling from the tower when such attacks
occurred. The windmill industry's shift in 1888 to the back-geared, all-steel
mill caused heated debates in Texas livestock and farming circles. Most
ranchers and farmers welcomed the new steel windmill because its galvanized
wheel and tower held up better in harsh weather; also, its gear system was
better able to take advantage of the wind, thus enabling the windmill to run
more hours per day. The back-geared mill could also pump deeper and
larger-diameter wells. Those who favored the old wood mill argued that the
steel mill was more likely to break because of its high speed, that it was not
as easily repaired as the wood mill, and that when parts had to be ordered the
steel mill might be inoperative for days. Though sales of wood mills continued,
they declined steadily, so that by 1912 few were being sold.
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| Three windmills at sunset iStock photo |
Though Texas became the largest user of windmills in the
United States, there were never more than three active manufacturers of
windmills in Texas at one time. Windmills remain an important supplier of water
for Texas cattlemen. The King Ranch in the late 1960's kept 262 mills running
continuously and 100 complete spares in stock. Stocking spare mills is a common
practice among ranchers who depend on the windmill to supply water for cattle
in remote pastures.
Because the windmill has been confined for the most part to
remote areas, it has become a symbol of a lonely and primitive life, fitting for
the pioneers it first served and the cowboys about whom we love to read. I hold windmills dear to my heart as symbols of the Old West--just not as old as I'd first imagined.
Let me leave you with a video of one of my favorite groups singing one of my favorite songs about water and the need for it: Sons of the Pioneers singing "Cool, Clear Water."
5 comments:
All right, now I feel guilty because I don't remember those two hard-won sentences in Brazos Bride about the windmill. LOL
I was working on the second of my Muleskinners series and had to stop and look up windmills. My story is set in 1871 so I was totally thrown off. Windmills didn't happen for two more years yet. But Mr R saved the day when he mapped out a route that would have water every ten miles.
BTW, his grandfather was a windmill repairman. Apparently that profession had a reputation for being a bit on the crazy side.
Great post and an eye-opener for me. I didn't realize windmills were in use that early. Thanks for the info.
The lines in BRAZOS BRIDE are only a few lines of dialogue, but its important to have the correct information. In the book, the brothers talk about ordering one of the windmills they'd seen advertised and the heroine is amazed they listen to her opinion as if she were an equal instead of as her father did--which was slap her for daring to interfere.
Enjoyed your post, Caroline. I too had no idea windmills were in use that early. :)
What great information about windmills! Thanks for sharing your research, Caroline. This is a keeper!
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