Mills of Genesee Valley

Before the commercial extraction of fossil fuels from the Oil Creek region of northern Pennsylvania, most mechanical work in the Genesee Valley was done by human and animal power, or some source ultimately derived from the sun: burning wood, wind power, or flowing water. The exception to this, of course, was coal--by the 1880s America's dominant source of energy.

Due to the Genesee region's ample supply of wood and running water, along with the cost of shipping coal, it's quite common to find instances of various water mills in the area's history. They were adapted to a wide range of uses: cutting wood into timber and milling it into specialized shapes (lumber mill); grinding corn into animal feed or for distilling alcohol (grist mill); grinding wheat or other grains (flour mill); creating boxes and other products from wood pulp (paper mill); fabricating metals (triphammer mill); powering industrial equipment (textile mill); and by the 1880s creating electricity via turbines.

This collection gathers various documents concerning mills in the Genesee Valley. In addition to images and written texts, there is also an interactive map illustrating the density of their usage during the mid-nineteenth century.