November 10th, 2023 America Windmill Museum in Lubbock Part 1 of 3

This will be a three part blog because of the pictures and information.  Who would have thought a windmill museum would be this interesting?

“The American Windmill Museum is the largest windmill museum in the world.  The museum has more than 160 American style windmills on exhibition.

    

History

The center was established in 1993 by Miss Billie Wolfe and Coy F. Harris. Wolfe, a faculty member at Texas Tech University, began searching for windmills in the early 1960s. She photographed and documented windmills across the nation and encouraged people to save what windmills were still standing. Thirty years later, there had been several individuals who had restored a number of early mills and Wolfe located one of these in Mitchell, Nebraska. By this time, Harris was working with Wolfe and he arranged, disassembled and moved this collection of forty-eight rare windmills to Lubbock.

These windmills remained in storage until 1997, when the City of Lubbock authorized an area of land for the museum. Harris and volunteers moved the collection to this new site. Windmills were erected on the grounds and inside a modest exhibit building.

In 1999, a much larger building became available, and Harris directed the movement of this building to the park site. He redesigned part of the "metal fabrication building" to better fit the windmills.

Presently

At the present time, there are more than a hundred rare and historic water pumping windmills displayed inside. Another sixty windmills are erected on the grounds with many pumping water.

Complementing the water pumping windmills are wind electric machines. Some of these date to the early 1920s. Dominating the windmill grounds is a Vestas V47 wind turbine. This 660 kW turbine stands on a 50-meter tower and provides (on a yearly average) all of the power required by the museum facility. Excess energy is sold to the local power grid.

On June 22, 2016 the center opened a new 33,000 sq. ft. addition that houses a 4,000 sq. ft. "G" scale train display featuring the early 1900s scenery when windmills and trains were life sources for each other. There are historic wind turbines on display, some of which date back to the 1920s. This wing of the museum also houses the Alta Reeds miniature house collection.

A side room contains the world's largest windmill mural, 34 feet high and 172 feet long. A 15-minute recorded narration tells its story, augmented with dramatic lighting and sound effects. It took over two years to complete, showcases lots of windmills in an old-timey Texas setting, and doesn't include any tornadoes.”

The Museum consisted of four rooms/buildings with hallways.  There was so much to see!

We started at the gift shop and walked down the hallway to the mural.  The hallway contained a scene of windmills in wood.  I love how the artist even included the doorways in the scene.

Entering the mural room:

This mural was jaw dropping. There was so much detail.  If you have a chance to enlarge the photos, please do. 

A real windmill is incorporated at the start of the mural:

Another doorway – if you look real close there is a cat on the top of the doorway:

I like how the mural continues on both sides of the door.

We were given a seek and find sheet for the mural – some were easy (Rusty Windmill, Owl, Hand Pump) and some were hard (2 cats, anvil, house finch, 6 dogs, hornet’s nest).  There were 38 items on the list so we spent some time trying to find them.  The more we looked the more we realized how detailed this mural was.  And no, we did not find them all.

From there we went to the windmill room.  Another WOW moment:

This was at one end of the building so that is where we started:

How Aermotor Windmills started – interesting story:

Here is the stand:

One of the main types of windmills still in use today:

Not only were windmills used to pump water but for power also:

Think about this..you are out on the prairie and now you need water and power for your farm.  Homemade Windmill!

Did you read the above?  This pipe was wrapped around the hub 4 times by the tornado.  Can you imagine the force?

The original Elgin squirrel weight:

As we walked around all the windmills, we found birds hidden.  Kudos to the museum curators for the nice touch to make as real as possible.

This windmill was HUGE:

I would love a few of these samples for my yard:

Even during WWII:

Barb Wire Birds nest:

More birds:

Even a butterfly:

They are setting up for the holidays and this display was small houses/towns:

Even a Model T:

See part two for windmill weights.