Swauger Mill

Swauger Mill (HM15KM)

Location: Grantsville, MD 21536 Garrett County
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Country: United States of America
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N 39° 37.938', W 79° 7.344'

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Inscription

New Germany State Park

— Friends of New Germany —

In 1850, this land was the site of a three-story gristmill, which processed wheat, buckwheat and cornmeal for the people who lived in the village of New Germany. John Swauger built the gristmill piece by piece, using hardwood from his own property, carving and polishing many of the gears and pulleys by hand.

In the early 1900's the mill was sold to Irish immigrants Phillip and Michael McAndrews, who built an imposing ten room home next to the mill. The mill remained at this location until the early 1930's when President Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps bulldozed the entire operation to make way for the parking facility you see before you. This work was the beginning of what would become the recreation area known as New Germany State Park. Today, all these buildings have vanished. Only the old millstones standing guard at the entrance to Parking Lot #5 remain.

The gristmill was a huge structure with three stories and a basement. It was operated with waterpower from the nearby lake. A sluice, or millrace, was built on a series of trestles to move the water from the east side of the lake to the mill. The water passed under the dirt road by way of a wooden culvert and then entered the sluice. The sluice then carried the water several hundred yards into the mill.

The water was funneled onto an overshot wheel, about 40 feet in diameter. A series of large buckets occupied the outer perimeter of the wheel. The weight of the water filling the buckets caused the wheel to turn. The basement housed the main drive gear, from which a series of other gears were operated by various belts, driving the mill's many grinding operations. Excess water from the mill's operation ran off into nearby Poplar Lick Run.

Details
HM NumberHM15KM
Tags
Marker ConditionNo reports yet
Date Added Saturday, September 27th, 2014 at 8:01am PDT -07:00
Locationbig map
UTM (WGS84 Datum)17S E 661133 N 4388631
Decimal Degrees39.63230000, -79.12240000
Degrees and Decimal MinutesN 39° 37.938', W 79° 7.344'
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds39° 37' 56.28" N, 79° 7' 20.64" W
Driving DirectionsGoogle Maps
Area Code(s)301, 240
Closest Postal AddressAt or near 25 Poplar Lick Run, Grantsville MD 21536, US
Alternative Maps Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap

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