Allen's Cider Mill was a historic

cider mill A cider mill, also known as a cidery, is the location and equipment used to crush apples into apple juice for use in making apple cider, hard cider, applejack, apple wine, pectin and other products derived from apples. More specifically, it refe ...

at 7 Mountain Road in

Granby, Connecticut Granby is a town in far northern Hartford County, Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New Y ...

. With a history extending back to 1783, it was at the time of its listing 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 1992 one the few operational cider mills in the state of Connecticut. After a period of abandonment, the mill collapsed in 2019.

Description and history

Allen's Cider Mill stood at the crossroads village of North Granby, on the south side of Mountain Road just west of its junction with

Connecticut Route 189 Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

. It was a -story wood-frame structure, set close to the road, with a gable roof and a -story shed addition. Its exterior was finished in vertical board siding. The main facade was three bays wide, with doors in the center and right bays on the ground floor, and square multilight windows in the other bays. The placement of the central door was slightly off-center. The interior contained functional equipment for making cider that dated to the mid-20th century, and vestigial remains of older equipment, including a conveyor mechanism for transporting apples into the mill's hopper. The attic space had traces of plasterwork, indicating it was a finished space, which was probably used for aging cider. and The property on which the cider mill sat had been used for the making of cider since at least 1783, when Silas Cossitt opened a mill across the street. It operated until about 1857, a period when North Granby was one of Connecticut's major cider brandy producing centers. It is believed that the frame of Silas Cossitt's 18th-century house was used in the construction of this building. In the 1860s this building was constructed as an almshouse for the town's indigent population. It was originally located at the road junction, where the present post office stands, and was moved a short way west and converted into a dance hall in the 1870s. It was moved to its present location a few years later, and housed the local Grange chapter. It was adapted for use as a cider mill in 1899. The mill's roof and upper floor collapsed and the south wall of the building fell down in August 2019.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in Hartford County, Connecticut Industrial buildings completed in 1783 Buildings and structures in Hartford County, Connecticut Granby, Connecticut Grinding mills on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut Cider mills

Description and history

See also

References