Night Mill, photo by The Ottolab

The Old Mill Museum is Dundee’s historical museum. Their history page says that over the years, it has served as a grist mill, hydro-electric power plant, Ford factory and fabricating factory.

The three-story frame mill as we know it was built in 1848-49 by Alfred Wilkerson, as a grist mill. The nearby dam had been constructed out of logs in 1846.

The building is of Greek Revival design, popular in Monroe County in the 1840s. “It is compact, geometric and of exquisite proportion,” according to the community’s Sesquicentennial Book, published in 1974.

The windows are double-hung with multiple lights. The exterior doors are divided horizontally (Dutch) and the overall design is symmetrical.

Hand-hewn beams, 10×10 inches for the main columns, support the building. The roof, floors and other connections were made with oak pegs. No longer existing are two smaller additions at the rear of the mill which were used to store flour barrels and milling tools during the building’s grist mill days.

Read on for much more.

View the Ottolab’s night exposure of the mill background bigtacular and see more in his slideshow.