Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

I didn't remember seeing this before so if it had been posted, sorry.

It's the first time I'm seeing it, so thanks for posting it. Interesting how 1 of the windmill towers on the right has a tank incorporated in it. And then there are a couple tanks with mills on top of them.

I've seen it and other Worlds Fair windmill Photos before. Love to see them, never gets old. Thanks I find it amazing how much money, time and effort was used to showcase their products.

Just goes to prove (once again) how vitally important windmills were, back in the day. NOTHING lives without water. It's the machine that won the west, no matter how you look at it.

I would have to check again on which brand windmill and what book I read it in, but I remember reading that all the windmills were allotted different plots to erect their mills, with limits on height. I THINK it was Aermotor but again, id have to double check, someone with Aermotor got permission from leadership for their mill to be 15 feet higher than everybody else’s. In the middle of the night a rowdy group got together and pulled the tower/mill down.

EDIT: update I guess it was just the tower being built at the time, I checked the book, it was from Still Turning by Christopher Gillis. Here’s an excerpt:

“In late August 1893, unbeknownst to the other windmill exhibitors, Aermotor started construction of a forty-foot steel tower with a twelve-foot power mill atop one of the stock barns south of the fair’s amphitheater. The other companies attempted to stop Aermotor by going to W. I. Buchanan, chief of the Department of Agriculture for the exhibition. Buchanan halted the windmill’s construction for two days on a Friday, during which time it was alleged that a group of men from the other windmill companies used a rope to pull down Aermotor’s unfinished tower while its work crew was away at supper.”

When the XIT ranch in Texas was at it's high point they had something like 425 windmills. The story is it was common for there to be sabotage against windmills standing on the ranch by manufactures trying to make a sale to the ranch.

Amazing! We found a mill with the tank in the tower a number of years ago in Nebraska. The photo was taken from the top of a hill, so it is a very tall tower, maybe 80 ft. Les & Linda

I wonder if that is a steel tank or if it just has a metal covering over the insulation? I have seen a wood tank with a tin cover like that with sawdust in between, it rusted out pretty bad. Great picture!