As a Rushford landmark, the former mill endures through its 157-year-old existence

Jan. 30—RUSHFORD, Minn. — In a slice of the Tew's Mill history, Penny Redalen notes simply, "that's our childhood." She soaks in Rushford's legacy of wheat and the generations of families who owned the mill, from owners who rebuilt the mill for their flourishing flour business to converting the mill into a hatchery and the restaurant that breathed new opportunities into the space.

She marvels at the wood beams — one solid piece stretching across the dining room — looking upward at the vast pieces with her sister Suzy Peterson. Between winterizing doorways in the old feed room, the two share memories of their family's ownership of the building and neighboring home. They wish they could show off the doors but there are myriad other historical notes in the building: the awning built to protect horses, the wood exterior on the upper levels made for storing grain and the limestone walls etched with notes from former owners.

"They've got those big beams up here too. How'd they get them up here?" Redalen reflected on the third floor of the former flour mill on a recent Thursday. The beams match the ones encased in stone on the first floor. "Nobody could do this again today all by hand, I don't think."

The builders, Hiram Walker and Roswell H. Valentine, found their way piece by piece even transporting the final machinery by hand sleds through "deep snow and heavy (ice) crust" in 1856. In about 15 years, Walker created a sawmill, grist mill, woolen mill and Iron Foundry from the bluffs wrapping the town, utilizing both wood and limestone.

As a local landmark resting along Rush Creek, the Valentine and Tew Mill served as one of three flour mills in Rushford. The mill building worked its way through several owners, including Delos J. Tew, George W. Valentine, Oehler brothers, Ralph Bierman, George Blanchfield and Stanley Hoiland, according to the Rushford Area Historical Society. While the Hoilands, including sisters Redalen and Peterson, wish they weren't looking for the next owner, the mill and their childhood home are for sale.

"It was the Walker flouring mill constructed in 1856 and 1857 that first brought Rushford, then a struggling village, into prominence for many miles around," Dr. Alden O. Droivold wrote in the "History of Rushford (Volume III): Whiskey, Wheat and Wagons."

The original mill burnt in 1874 and the owners set their sights on continuing the milling tradition with a new mill opening in 1876. This is the "three-story native stone mill" built by stone mason Edward Blanchfield that remains beside the river today. Blanchfield also built many of the buildings in Rushford, likely including the now metal-faced Motor Parts and Equipment Auto Plus, Root River Floral and Abundant Life Fitness Massage, and stone farm residences in the area.

Fillmore County led the growth of milling before

Minneapolis became the flour milling capital of the world from 1880 to 1930,

according to the

National Register of Historic Places.

The modest "first class mill" in Rushford had the capacity for 70 barrels per day. They sold over 40,000 bushels yearly in the 1890s with markets dependent on rough oxcart roads and railroad lines. Their 15,000 annual barrels of flour extended to markets in Europe.

The last owners of the operating mill, the Oehler brothers, carried on their family legacy of milling through World War I regulations and machinery improvements to produce flour, corn meal, rye and buckwheat flour.

"They operated the mill ... until about 1936, when sedimentation on the once turbulent Rush Creek with 8 foot banks caused the creek to become so shallow it was no longer a viable source of water power," Droivold wrote.

The decades of wheat growing prominence and flour milling had faded. Redalen remarked, "now there's no wheat grown around here at all."

After reaching international markets with flour and gladiolus bulbs, the mill found local prominence again as a chicken and turkey hatchery under George Blanchfield. "We just have fond, fond memories of the chick hatchery," Jo Dubbs said of her grandparents' ownership of the hatchery from 1943 to 1957.

She described running the hatchery as a "family thing." Her grandmother Gladys Blanchfield drove the family's truck to deliver chicks in all types of weather. Charlotte Schmeling, Dubbs' mother, determined the sex of the chicks. The five grandkids ventured onto the elevator and truck to work with their chicks.

"Just watching (my mother) work. Oh my goodness, she could (determine the sex of) those chickens and put them into the crates in no time. She was really good at it," Dubbs said.

All these years later, the "overpowering" smell and dust of the elevator lingers with Dubbs and her siblings, she said. They also smile about receiving chicks at Easter, including a series of dyed chicks.

Their fun continued in the shallow creek: a summer adventure for the Schmeling family, people attending graduation parties and the Hoiland family's favorite splashing spot. "In the summer, we lived in the creek," Redalen said while wearing a warm fashion coat along the creek looking a "little forlorn" with the snow.

Through the different businesses at the mill, "the building endured," said Sally Ryman, Rushford Area Historical Society board member. From 1957 to 1986, the Stanley and Elizabeth Hoiland family added their turkey hatchery. They raised bronze turkeys from the process of laying hens to selecting eggs, loading incubators and debeaking hatched chicks and transporting them to more heated spaces upstairs, Peterson and Redalen said.

"There's so many little tidbits about this place, the building and how it's built — it withstood that flood because of the way it was built," Peterson said.

While recovering from the flood, Eric Hoiland lost his turkey farm, his "first love," Peterson said. But he had

a vision for the mill: the Feed Room Cafe.

"He left the walls original, it's really unique," Peterson said. He passed in 2012.

For a few short years, the restaurant offered a soothing place to listen to the peaceful sounds of Rush Creek and meet friends. Peterson said the rewards of running the restaurant include the people and their reactions to the historical building. Dubbs calls the remodel "beautiful" and shares the wish the restaurant was still open.

"When Eric ... was redoing this and then they were in the basement cleaning it out ... it kept on coming up chips of stone, little pieces of stone, well that was stone when they were doing the walls, they would ... make the block (square) to fit," Peterson described.

Many in Rushford have memories of the building to hold onto, from buying pumpkins to Rushford-Peterson Public Schools' fundraisers and traveling past the building on their way to the cemetery.

"(The fundraiser) was very well-attended because people just love the idea of coming to that historic building, it was so unique, and that was the attraction was to come there for the dinner because it wasn't normally open anymore," Ryman said.

As a building with "such a great history in Rushford," the community is proud of the enduring mill building, Ryman and Dubbs said. They're hoping for another life to it, whether ideas such as a vacation rental, brewery or retreat space. "I want it to keep on and be something," Redalen said.

"For it to be open to the public and be used in this manner, it's quite amazing," Eric Hoiland shared with the Post Bulletin in 2010. "I would say the transformation is not complete. There is always more that can be done."