The Iconic Windmills That Made the American West - Atlas Obscura

The Iconic Windmills That Made the American West - Atlas Obscura: The Iconic Windmills That Made the American West - Atlas Obscura



In A Field Guide to American Windmills, the historian T. Lindsey Baker writes that “the first commercially successful self-governing [or self-regulating] American windmill” was developed in New England in the mid-1850s, by a salesman named John Burnham and a machinist named Daniel Halladay. Unlike more traditional European-style windmills, The Halladay Windmill Company’s product was nimble; it could swivel to face the changing wind and angle its blades to adjust speed and avoid cracking in powerful gusts. Most importantly, it could do all of this mechanically, responding to the power and direction of the wind without the help of people.