The American West: Western Farmers Used Wind For Power Long Before Green Energy

For hundreds of years in America, the most important application of windmills was to provide power to pump for water and it became an essential of life on the Western plains and prairies.

LW
Linda Wommack

February 02, 20256 min read

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All across America from the prairies to the mountain valleys, the windmill has become iconic, something out of Willa Cather’s O’ Pioneer.

In this age of New Energy, the windmill is making a comeback. The pioneers knew the age-old science application of windmills as a mechanical water pumping system, a system that sustained homesteaders across the American West.

Today, that same age-old system has been recreated in the form of wind energy. Yet, before clean energy was an economic alternative, the windmill was the only device available to provide energy and, most of all, water.

For hundreds of years in America, the most important application of windmills was to provide pumping for water. The pumping system used relatively small blades with rotor diameters averaging from one to several meters.

This system was perfected by Daniel Halladay of Ellington, Connecticut, in 1854. A smaller system than the European version, the Halladay was arranged mechanically so that the wheel could be pointed toward the direction of the wind.

This revolution allowed for access and affordability for homesteaders to have a water pumping  windmill system, used all across the western United States as the Western migration grew. 

The history of the windmill can be traced back to 12th Century England, where windmills were first used, generally powered by animals.

The first mills had four paddle-like wooden blades, wider at the end to maneuver with the wind. By the following century, Belgium and Holland had expanded the technology with larger blades as well as pump houses. This method was refined by an American company in 1870, with the advent of steel blades.

Six Million Windmills

The steel blades were lighter in weight and could be worked into several different shapes. They worked so well with the wind, that the gears in the reciprocal pumps, (housed in the stand) had to be recalibrated for speed reduction. With westward expansion and the Homestead Act of 1862, nearly six million mechanical windmills were in use all across the West by 1870. 

Of course, before the windmill could be erected, water had to be located. Along the vast Plains, water is scarce, and the earliest of homesteaders had staked water claims to the streams and rivers. Therefore, finding water was tantamount to a good homestead.

These hearty settlers turned to digging wells. If available, a dowser or water witch, would have been hired. Once the water was located, whatever the method, the digging began. It was hard work, but later the physical labor was alleviated by the augur, which bore straight down with greater ease and was much safer.

Hire a Well Digger

As settlement in the West took root, water-well diggers were in high demand.

Usually, a former drilling miner from the mines of Pennsylvania or Virginia, the well digger had his own digging equipment: a small steam engine and a boiler.

Working from a hand-built beam, the drill would be dropped by a cable supported assembly, drilling down to the source of water. The going rate in the 1870s was a dollar a foot drilled. For those who could afford it, the results were well worth it.           

“We have made one improvement this spring which is a great help to me-that is getting the water pumped into the house. I suppose we shouldn’t have dared to do it if we had known how the season was going to be but after all, I am glad we did it for it saves so much time and strength,” Rose Alder wrote in her diary in June 1916.

The small farm town of Thurman, in the northeastern portion of Washington County, Colorado, was run entirely by the city’s single windmill.

Erected by Charles Dolifka in 1890, it served the six-block town, which had about a dozen businesses, including the post office. The largest population was 60 people by 1908.

Dolifka erected nearly all the windmills in the area for the local farmers and ranchers, many of which can still be seen today along Highway 36, south of Anton.

For homesteaders, water needs extended to the livestock. Much more water was needed than that of a water well powered by the windmill.

The solution was found in damming a surface water source, such as a pond, or hollow to catch rain water. This allowed a larger quantity of water at the surface for the livestock. This same method, although with a few variations, was used in many farming communities across the Western plains.

Water tanks were built from drilled spring holes. In this manner, water was plentiful and resupplied with rain water. 

Water For Towns

A water tank near a growing community, was an incentive for the railroad, if they were building in that direction. The engines needed water approximately every 30 miles.

When the Burlington Northern Railroad was building west in the 1880s, the Lincoln Land Company was ready. They built a water tower, enticed homesteaders to buy land, and platted the town of Willard.

Another example is the town of Peetz, on the northeast border with Nebraska. Also built along the Burlington Northern Railroad line, the Peetz location for a rail stop was enticed by the large water tank at the edge of town.

The steel bladed water pumping windmill is a picturesque symbol of a bygone era. Or is it the technology that has been resurrected in a new era? The pioneers of the 19th Century were ingenious and often left to their own devices, but they could create wonders.

There were several different types of windmills. The railroad windmills had fan wheels that were as much as 30 feet in diameter, while the fans on most farms and ranches were between 8 and 10 feet in diameter. In every case, American ingenuity progressed and perfected the European models.

In 1854, Aermotor and Dempster introduced the thin wooden slat designed flaps that were nailed to wooden rims. Most of these wheels had tails to orient them into the wind, yet some were weather-vaning mills that operated downwind of the tower.

Speed control of these models was provided by hinged sections of the blades, so that they would fold back in umbrella fashion against high winds.

The most important refinement of the American fan-type windmill was the development of the versatile steel blades in 1870.

With the further development of the steel blades, came the advent of Turbine windmills, with the blades set like the blades of an electric fan or airplane propeller. This allowed for the wheel to face around, no matter the wind direction.

That same technology has advanced today in the modern windmills. Three times as tall as the old tower windmills, and made of bio-tech materials, these wind turbines currently run on electricity, yet research is advancing.

Wind turbines near Windsor, Wray, Sterling and the Wyoming border tower above the wind-blown prairie. A picturesque scene of yesterday will have to await the test of time. 

Today, the American Windmill Museum in Lubbock, Texas, offers a unique educational experience about the history of windmills and how the harnessing of energy is accomplished through the power of wind. The museum truly aspires to showcase the legacy of windmills.    

Linda Wommack can be reached at lwomm3258@aol.com

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Linda Wommack

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