Loudonville, Ohio

Loudonville is a beautiful town in southern Ashland County.  They have a great deal going for them in education, athletics, tourism, business, and community spirit.  This will not be a balanced or definitive look at Loudonville, but just parts of the town I especially enjoy, sort of like the way I have done Ashland City.                                                               BACK

Mission Statement:  To restore and open an 1840's grist mill to the public as a working museum in order to preserve a vanishing part of our heritage for future generations to enjoy and learn from.

The mill above and the flume shown more completely at left will be open this summer Saturday and Sunday 12:00-5:00 pm.

This is the mill-wheel just inside the water wheel shown in the outside picture of the mill.  The water runs down the flume above, turns the water wheel, and the axle runs through the outside wall and turns the inside wheel, which I think is about the same diameter as the outside one.

These are some of the many hand hewed beams which support the upstairs.

Broken Rocks Cafe

If you make a trip to Loudonville, and there are many reasons to do just that as I will show you in the future, you need to stop on Main Street downtown at the Broken Rocks Cafe.  There are wonderful soups and sandwiches and fresh baked bread.  It smell wonderful and it looks wonderful.

I'm disappointed that my picture didn't show the list of offerings, but take my word for it the focaccia bread I took home is nearly gone just a day later.  I had to ask, and the two young ladies are indeed identical twins.

Wonderful food in a bright, lovely setting.

The Ashland Times Gazette ran a nice front page story about the dressing of the stones at the mill, which is being restored by the Friends of Wolf Creek/Pine Run Grist Mill Inc. and I was inspired to find out for myself.   Rob Grassi is restoring the stones using ancient methods which he says date from the time of the Roman empire.  This is the top stone.  When reassembled this stone will rest on top of the already dressed bottom stone.  The grain will go down through a hole in the center of the top stone as it turns, work its way out to the edge of the stones and by the time it gets there the scissoring action of the groves will have ground the grain into flour.  The stones are held within a casing which has a hole for the flour to drop out of.

This is the bottom stone, all finished and ready to start grinding.

These are the gears directly above the wheel.  That shaft runs through the floor of the upper level of the building to the actual grinding millstones.

These are two places the flour falls down from the grinding stones above to either a bag or a barrel.

At left is the stream above the mill. It's a beautiful country setting for a very ambitious project.  I don't know just how the financing and managing of this piece of history works.  I'll tell you what I do know and give you more on that later.

The Wolf Creek/Pine Run Grist Mill is a non-profit corporation.  I'm fairly sure that means they have their 501c3, and you can write off any donations on your taxes.  I don't know how much land the corporation owns, but they are talking about hiking trails and rebuilding the "Miller's Home" which has already been dismantled and moved to the mill site.