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Historic Directory Bridges Bridges Wapsipinicon Mill Restoration
| Wapsipinicon Mill Restoration |
| Hits (725) | Comments (0) |
| Written by Rick Collins |
| 16 July 2010 |
- Details
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Building name Wapsipinicon Mill Submitted by Rick Collins Building type 6 wheel water powered flour mill Construction date 1875 - original, 2009 - restoration Timbers used white pine, white oak Wapsipinicon Mill - Images
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- Info & location
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Description & details Though still standing proud, the Wapsipinicon Mill suffered severe damage to the meal floor where flour and other mill products were originally sacked for sale. The meal floor is located a few feet beneath the lowest course of windows. The water line from the July 2008 flooding still shows halfway up the limestone foundation. Over the years, the structural integrity of the meal floor system had been disrupted, allowing original historic timbers to float down the river during each flood of the Wapsipinicon River.
Trillium Dell Timberworks was hired to remove all the non-historic fabric, and to re-establish the structural integrity of the original timber floor system. New timbers and flooring are white oak, which was the original species used in the meal floor due to its rot resistance. Damaged and moldy floor joists and flooring – all non-original – were removed in order to gain access to the remaining girt system and to replicate the original-flood resistant construction. Joist and floor system sections were winched out along a 50’ ramp for further disassembly and disposal.
A telling detail: rotted girts were once connected across the entire width of the mill. The Portland cement piers, poured in 1906, interrupted the continuous run of girts. Posts which once bore on these continuous girts now bear atop the tapered upper cement pier. Without the weight of the posts to hold down the floor girts, these shortened girts were held with nothing except gravity, allowing the floor system to lift and wash downstream with each flood. The floor system was reconnected using period-appropriate metal bracketry, thereby re-establishing the structural matrix of the floor system and minimizing future flood damage.
Country USA County Buchanan Locality Independence, Iowa Postcode 50644 Latitude 42.469 Longitude -91.896 Google Maps link http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.77566,112.587891&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Independence,+Buchanan,+Iowa&layer=x&g=independence,+ia&ll=42.468598,-91.889339&spn=0.089398,0.219898&z=13 Web Link http://www.buchanancountyhistory.com/mill.php - Discussion
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