Chasing Windmills: From Historic to Modern Designs

Interested in windmills?

The Saline Area Historical Society is hosting a free windmill tour from noon to 5 p.m Sunday.

Visitors can tour five windmills within five miles of each other as part of the historical society’s 25^th anniversary celebration.

The family-orientated tour is “the first tour of its kind in the Saline area,” said Wayne Clements, chairmen of the event.

The tour features historic wooden and steel designs dating back to the 1880s as well as a sleek modern electric version, which is designed to generate electricity.

“Windmills are an important part of Saline’s history. In the 1900s, we built our own here called the Saline Standard Windmill,” Clements said, adding that like makes of cars, windmill designs changed over the years.

“This tour features examples of those different designs,” he said.    

Windmill enthusiasts can walk, jog, drive or ride a bus with a tour guide to visit the five windmills. The bus is free and visitors can catch a ride at any of the three locations where a brochure with a map of the other locations will be available.

On the tour is:

• An Eclipse windmill at the Saline Depot Museum, 402 N. Ann Arbor St.
• Three windmills at the Rentschler Farm Museum, 1265 E. Michigan Ave.
• A self-oiling Aeromotor, (sometimes called the “Cadillac of Windmills”), a wooden wheel built by the Saline Windmill Company, and a third windmill that was originally on the Tefft Farm on Textile Road in Pittsfield Township.
• The fifth windmill is a 2012 version, designed to produce electrical power. It’s located on the centennial farm of Howard and Kelven Braun on Bemis Road in York Township.

In addition to the tour, the Saline Railroad Depot Museum and caboose will be open for tours as will the farm museum and gift shop. Plus, food concessions are expected to be available.

The first 100 children will receive a free pinwheel and old fashioned stick candy, said Agnes Dikeman, treasurer of the historical society.

For more information, call 734-429-9621, go to www.salinehistory.org or e-mail: salinehistory@frontier.com.

(This article was submitted by the Saline Area Historical Society.)