Wait's Mill Park is Underway

WAITSBURG – Local historians are probably aware that the village of Delta (later founded as Waitsburg) grew up around a flour mill, built by Sylvester Wait, which began operations in 1865. But did you know that Wait's Mill set a truly impressive world record in 1908? Or that, on the way here, Sylvester Wait lost the saddlebags containing his life savings – the money he was going to use to start operations at Wait's Mill?

To learn more about that world record and to find out what happened to those saddlebags full of money, just walk across the Main Street Bridge, take a right through Rankin Park and check out the latest updates to the former site of Wait's Mill.

Several groups have been working steadily to prepare the mill site for May's Celebration Days weekend, which will be Waitsburg's sesquicentennial celebration this year. To prepare the site, the city's public works crew removed the rubble and debris left from the 2009 fire that destroyed the mill.

Last year, dirt and other material from the W. 7th Street project was used to cover gristmill elements such as foundation walls, to preserve them so that they could potentially be displayed at a later date.

The Waitsburg Historical Society partnered with the City of Waitsburg in a cost-share agreement to transform the existing mill's vault into an informational kiosk. The kiosk was designed through the volunteer efforts of Jones & Jones Architects. A sloped, overhanging roof and surrounding walkway were added to the vault last year and the city crew hauled in topsoil, leveled the ground and planted grass seed next to the kiosk last fall.

Recently, two informational panels were installed on the vault. One highlights the history of the mill (including the aforementioned world record and saddlebag incidents) and the second displays excerpts from Lewis and Clark's diary as they camped near Bolles Junction in May of 1806.

Several historically interesting machinery parts, salvaged from the mill site, are in storage and will eventually be displayed in the Wilson-Phillips House garage on West 4th Street. A large water turbine – warped and bent in the 2009 fire – was installed this week and serves as an art piece at the mill site. McGregor Company donated time to clean up the turbine and used their lift to place it on the existing concrete pad below the kiosk. Jeff Broom and Tom Land designed the legs that the public works crew installed to support the piece. The turbine will be dedicated to the thousands of citizens who worked at the mill, said City Administrator Randy Hinchliffe.

As part of the Wait's Mill Project, Northwest Grain Growers, Inc. generously donated Rankin Park to the City. That space will be incorporated into the city's overall park facilities, eventually linking Preston Park and Main Street to the mill site, said Hinchliffe. A strip of grass will connect Rankin Park with the mill site, making what will be one long park along the river's edge. Hinchliffe said the park will be known as Wait's Mill Park. There are tentative plans to dedicate the park during May's Celebration Days weekend.