The Graue Mill is a water-powered grist mill that was originally erected in 1852. Now a museum, it is one of two operating water-powered

gristmills A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separated ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

(the other is the Franklin Creek Grist Mill). It is located on Salt Creek in

Oak Brook, Illinois Oak Brook is a village mostly in DuPage County with a small portion in Cook County in Illinois. Per the 2020 census, the population was 8,163. This suburb of Chicago has the headquarters of several companies and organizations including Ace H ...

, owned by the

Forest Preserve District of DuPage County The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County is a governmental agency headquartered in Wheaton, Illinois. Its mission is to acquire and hold lands containing forests, prairies, wetlands, and associated plant communities or lands capable of being re ...

and operated by a nonprofit preservationist group.

History

Friedrich Graue, born in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, emigrated to the United States in the late 1840s. Changing his name to 'Frederick', he brought with him knowledge of the craft of waterwheel gristmilling. Settling in what was the farming village and early transportation hub of Fullersburg, Illinois, formerly named Brush Hill, he and William Asche (whose brother-in-law, Henry Fischer, built a wind-powered grist mill in what is now

Mount Emblem Cemetery Mount Emblem Cemetery is located at the intersection of Grand Avenue and County Line Road in Elmhurst, Illinois. Mount Emblem is perhaps best known as the home of the Fischer Windmill, popularly known as "The Old Dutch Mill", a typical Dutch wi ...

) filed claim in 1849 to a tract of damp,

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

-rich bottomland along the banks of Salt Creek that was home to a

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

that burned down the year before. Together they built a new sawmill. They together operated this mill for three years, until Graue decided to engage in the milling business on his own. Digging ditches in the poorly drained soil, he and his family recovered clay that could be used to make bricks. The Graues built a kiln on their

farmstead A homestead is an isolated dwelling, especially a farmhouse, and adjacent outbuildings, typically on a large agricultural holding such as a ranch or station. In North America the word "homestead" historically referred to land claimed by a settle ...

, fired the bricks, and slowly raised the new structure and

waterwheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...

into place from the on-site building materials. The mill went into operation in the summer of 1852."Recreation/Entertainment: Graue Mill", Village of Oak Brook, accessed March 13, 2007

Graue Mill, Oak Brook, Illinois - Stierch

Graue Mill, Oak Brook, Illinois - Stierch

The ditching and draining of the Graue Mill farmstead was typical of

German-American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

settlement patterns in the Midwest in the 1840s and 1850s, as the thrifty German emigrants found assets in tracts of land that had been left behind by earlier, English-speaking frontiersmen and women. Graue could not build his entire mill from onsite materials. He bought four buhrstones that turned on water-driven axles to grind locally grown

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

and

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

. Quarried in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, the buhrstones, a type of

millstone Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones. Millstones come in pairs: a convex stationary base known as the ''bedstone'' and ...

, were carefully dressed by specially trained craftsmen so as to form two level, gritty surfaces that would pulverize the grain between them."History of the Graue Mill and Museum", DuPage Graue Mill Corporation/

, accessed March 13, 2007

Graue and his family were

Pietist Pietism (), also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christianity, Christian life, including a social concern for ...

Germans who opposed

American slavery The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Slave ...

. The mill is one of three

authenticated Authentication (from ''authentikos'', "real, genuine", from αὐθέντης ''authentes'', "author") is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicati ...

Illinois stops on the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...

, the

subversive Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...

movement that helped fugitive slaves escape from the

American South The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Today

The Graue Mill operated in eastern DuPage County under three generations of the Graue family for approximately 60 years. In the 1910s, advances in milling technology, particularly the invention of steel

rolling mills In metalworking, rolling is a metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through one or more pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, to make the thickness uniform, and/or to impart a desired mechanical property. The concept is simil ...

, drove the old mill out of business. The derelict mill was restored by the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...

in 1934–1943, and was opened to the public as a working historic site in 1951. As DuPage County became urbanized in the second half of the 20th century, the mill's surroundings lost their agricultural context. The mill building itself, however, was honored as a survivor from Illinois post-frontier years. The Graue Mill was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1975, and was recognized as a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1981. The mill has been periodically re-restored since 1943 to keep it in operating condition, including work completed in 2002. The Graue Mill is located at 3800 S. York Road, on the banks of Salt Creek in Oak Brook, Illinois, and is surrounded by Fullersburg woods. It is currently open to the public and as of 2017 grinds grain which can be purchased at the site. Check the Graue Mill and Museum website for dates and times of operation.

References

External links

Graue Mill and Museum, Forest Preserve District of DuPage County

Fullersburg Historic District, Fullersburg Historic Foundation

Hinsdale Chamber of Commerce

Oak Brook Historic Timeline

"Chapter 11: Hinsdale" by Shirley Stitt in ''DuPage Roots'' by editors, Stephen A. Thompson and Contributors

"Chapter 16: Oak Brook" by Etta Susan Chapek in ''DuPage Roots'' by editors, Stephen A. Thompson and Contributors
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624125541/http://www.dupagehistory.org/dupage_roots/ , date=2016-06-24 1852 establishments in Illinois Civilian Conservation Corps in Illinois Grinding mills in Illinois Hinsdale, Illinois Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks Industry museums in Illinois Mill museums in the United States Museums in DuPage County, Illinois National Register of Historic Places in DuPage County, Illinois Oak Brook, Illinois Underground Railroad locations Underground Railroad in Illinois Grinding mills on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois