By Roger E. Regnier
Other Mill sites listed in The Society for the Preservation of Old Mills

JOHN B. SCHONHOFF, immigrant to the United States from Holland, bought a farm 12 miles north of Wamego in the 1870's. Windmills having been an important part of life in his native land, it seemed natural to Mr. Schonhoff to build and operate a windpowered mill.

While the mill Mr. Schonhoff built in the livestock production adapted, limestone hill country of Pottawatomie County was not the commercial success of which the family dreamed, they left a landmark which farsighted Wamego citizen have preserved for posterity.
All metal and wooden parts of the mill were constructed by Mr. Schonhoff at the site except the main drive shaft, hauled from Leavenworth by wagons.
Neighbor boys, stopping for swimming or fishing with the Schonhoff sons, had to take turns operating the air blast device for the homemade forge.

Jim Chadwick and Abe Rawson, Wamego stonemasons of English descent and skilled artisans, erected the stone tower from a soft, yellowish limestone quarried near the site. The structure was 40 feet high with a diameter of 25 feet at the base. Mr. Chadwick used native white limestone for the trim and for the sculptured bust of Ceres, goddess of grain.

The family-operated mill did custom grinding of feed and flour for a few years. Sometimes on windy days the entire Schonhoff family could be seen pushing on the long tail opposite the fan to revolve the entire top of the mill on its iron track atop the stone walls thus turning the big vanes away from the wind.

THERE WAS NOT enough grinding business in the mainly pasture grass country to make it a paying enterprise.

Sometime in the late 1880's or early 1890's the Schonhoffs ceased operating the mill. The house which the Schonhoffs built on the farm site became part of a barn used by the next owner. This structure is still on the site.

Ed N. Regnier bought the farm in 1898. He established a purebred livestock farm operation. "The Stone Tower Farm" appeared on Regnier's business stationery. The old mill became a sight-seers' attraction. Many visitors climbed the wooden stairs, carved their initials in the soft limestone. Adventuresome boys could scale
the outside walls, clinging with fingers and toes to the cracks between stones where mortar had weathered away.

After the Regnier family moved to Wamego in 1915, maintenance of the structure became a problem. In 1924, A. M. Bittmann and Forest Leach, members of the city park board, conceived the idea of moving the mill to the city park mound in Wamego.

Mr. and Mrs. Regnier agreed to donate the mill to Wamego City. A volunteer group of Wamego businessmen and farmers was organized to move the mill.

The "courses" of layers of stone were numbered as were the stones in each course. Drawings and photographs were made. Stones and machinery were hauled to Wamego on horse drawn wagons and the mill was reconstructed.

Robert Cox, former Wameqoan and Tulsa oil man, donated $1,000.00 for restoration of the wooden top and the vanes.

It stands today in the City Park, a well-preserved, 88-year-old symbol of American, composite of the culture, skills and folkways.