Weinel Mill

Weinel Mill

In 1854, German born John Weinel moved to Kay’s Ward and homesteaded on land along the banks of what came to be called Spring Hollow Creek. Spring Hollow Creek was a spring fed stream and did not have a mountain source so the water flowed year round – a perfect supplier of water power for a pioneer grist mill. Since John Weinel had worked as a miller in Germany, he decided to build his own flourmill.

The Weinel Mill was build over a three year period, John beginning construction before he actually moved onto his farm. John used native stone for the mill’s foundation and the waterwheel supports. Local lumber was used for framing and red bricks manufactured in Bountiful were used for the exterior walls. The finished mill measured twenty by forty feet.

When it was built, the Weinel Mill was one of the only milling facilities in Northern Utah that was built, owned and operated by a professional miller.

The mill was the “overshot” type. The first wooden bucketed waterwheel was discarded after about ten years of service and replaced with steel supports and buckets. The steel waterwheel was four feet wide by twelve and a half feet in diameter. The water buckets measured twelve inches across by eight inches deep by four feet long. The shaft upon which the wheel revolved was seven inches of solid steel. The steel waterwheel weighed over one ton.

John Weinel ran his mill for over thirty-five years. Farmers from as far away as Southern Idaho brought their grain to Kaysville for processing. The mill provided chopped grain for livestock as well as refined white and bran flour. When his health failed, John hired Thomas Boynton to continue the mill’s operation. Boynton ran the mill until about 1895. In 1906, two walls of the mill were blown down in a severe east wind and the mill building was taken down shortly after that.