5-06-2024 4:19am

Boyertown Historical Society Holds Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting at Bahr’s Mill

Lesley Misko Editor

More than 75 guests toured Bahr’s Mill during the Boyertown Area Historical Society ‘s recent Grand Opening and ribbon cutting ceremony. Six members of the Society’s board and three Historical Society members served as tour guides.

Barbara Fletcher, Rob Theisen, and Mark Heist, Historical Society Board members and volunteers provide information and tours for guests.

Guests included board members from Jim Thorpe Historical Society, Limerick Historical Society and members of the Trappe Historical Society along with a blacksmith from the Evans-Mumbower Mill in North Wales who is assisting with plans for the future Bahr’s Mill Blacksmithing shop.

Site of the archeological dig and future Blacksmithing site.

As part of the ribbon cutting and tour, an archeologist and her assistant demonstrated the technique of an archeological dig, currently taking place in the area of the future Blacksmithing Shop. Explanations of the machinery were provided.

Future plans for the Mill were offered including archeological digs in several areas of the mill property, selling honey from the existing beehives, offering educational tours for scouting troops, creating a pollinator garden with native plants designed to feed the bees, funded by a USDA grant along the mill's former raceway from the dam that fed it.

The former raceway, the pathway of the water to the overshot wheel from the dam destroyed by flood in 1938, is planned as a pathway bounded by pollinators and native plants to feed the bees.

Adding Bahr’s Mill to the Historical Society’s “acquisitions” came about in 2022 with an offer the society “couldn’t refuse.” Although other projects were on the society’s “to do” list—including renovation of their home—the opportunity to preserve the 19th-century stone mill was too good to pass up.

History
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Bahr's Mill is a stone mill building built in 1897 to house Jacob Bahr's woodworking and grist mill business. It is part of a farm complex in the village of Gabelsville, Berks County, Pennsylvania, one mile north and west of the center of Boyertown. The site was home to a linseed oil mill from before 1828 until the 1890's. A woodworking machinery was installed in the early 1870's. The machinery, which includes a duplicate lathe, a polishing machine (belt sander) and a spoke-tenoning machine, which has 1870 and 1871 patent dates. There are also two standard lathes, both over 10 feet long.

The mill was water-powered by the overshot wheel until severe flooding in 1938, when the dam washed out. Also, in 1945, the Bahr Family won a contract from Boyertown Burial Casket Company for the sawmill (across the street), requiring more hours of operation than the millpond could provide. At that time, the woodworking business was largely ignored until Lawrence Bahr closed the sawmill in 1967.

Today, the mill has been completely restored It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The original woodworking & corn grinding equipment, water wheel, and some of the blacksmithing equipment remain intact. In fact, the machinery still works today and, when fully operational, is extremely quick and quite loud!

Boyertown, first known as Colebrookdale, was settled in early 1700s by iron miners, becoming a significant supplier in early America.