Milling Wheat into Flour

	Do you know how wheat mills worked in the 1920s? Hollis Miller explains how. Watch This Video (Quicktime required)

Some raw products had to be processed before they could be used or sold. Wheat could be processed for many products. Farm families from all over York County came to the Thayer millhouse on Lincoln Creek to process their wheat into flour.

A family would load wheat into a horse-drawn wagon and drive to the mill. At the millhouse, the wheat was scooped into a hopper. A water-powered wheel would turn the grinder, grinding raw wheat into flour. The family returned home with a supply of wheat flour in hand-sewn cloth bags. Farm women used the wheat flour to make bread, rolls, and other baked items.

A postcard of the water wheel at the Fairbury Nebraska mill.

Written by Claudia Reinhardt.

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