“After a day’s work,
as I rested on the porch steps in the fading daylight, I could hear the sucker
rods of the old wooden windmill lifting water.” (Etchings on the Heart by Susan
A. Holland in New Mexico Magazine, February 2018)
“The unglamorous, squeaking windmill
… was the one machine without which the Plains settlers could not have hoped
for survival. For the one essential the plainsmen didn’t have was water; the
windmill often was the easiest and sometimes was the only way that the precious
water could be obtained. Now the windmills are disappearing from the
scene—gradually, but surely. … As long as their dwindling numbers stand, the
sturdy old powerhouses of the Plains remain as evidence enough that it was not
flying lead but the flying wheels of the windmills that did the most to truly
win the West. Jeff Grooms in New Mexico
Magazine, March 2018)
Rancho Viejo at Santa Fe, where
Marsha and I now live, is divided into three Home Owner Associations: Entrada,
South Community (“Windmill Ridge”), and North Community (“The Village”). Even though our home is in North Rancho Viejo
the south Community’s windmill is clearly visible to us every day as we walk
the desert trails – as a result the first question that we had when we moved
here in September 2017 was, “so what about the windmill?”
In his
self-published book “The Memoirs of Larry Meyer” one of the original owners of Rancho Viejo recalls their major
problem in developing the land, “First of all there was no water on the
property – only several windmills – so if we were going to develop it, we had
to find water.”
Unbeknownst
to this city-born-and-raised/suburban adult northeasterner, there were
apparently parts of the United States that did not have the luxury of municipally
supplied water. Hence the now landmark symbol
of and eponymous name source for our neighboring HOA community to the south.
Actually a
form of water pump, windmills in the southwest were once a necessary way of
supplying “Adam’s ale” for cattle and crop irrigation, but were largely
abandoned when electric and gasoline motors came on the scene. “Early documents refer to use of windmills…in
Persia in 644 A.D.” were they were used to “grind grain” according to the book
“Windmills and Dreams”. They appeared in
Europe in the 12th century.
On August
29, 1854, Daniel Halladay a machinist, inventor, and businessman from
Connecticut patented the first commercially viable windmill – “Halladay’s
Self-Governing Windmill” – after having been approached to work on the design
by Ellington, Connecticut businessman, John Burnham. Burnham was in the pump
business and realized that with a reliable way to bring ground water to the
surface he could significantly increase business. “Halladay’s Self-Governing Windmill” automatically
turned to face the prevailing wind direction, and maintained a uniform speed by
changing the pitch of the sails – with no human oversight. The device would stand still during a storm
by turning the edges of its sail wings to face into the wind, and then
gradually redeploy them to resume operation when the storm ended. It successfully drew water from as deep and
twenty-five feet and moved it more than 100 feet into a reservoir. The windmill itself sold for $50.00, with
pumps and pipes costing an additional $25.00.
Halladay later moved his business to be closer to his western customer,
forming the U.S. Wind Engine and Pipe Company of Batavia, Illinois.
Another
highly successful brand of water pumping windmills for the southwest was the
“Eclipse” produced by Morse and Company and invented by Leonard Wheeler, a
Presbyterian minister who was working among the Ojibwe Indians on the south
shore of Lake Superior. He perfected the
device in the privacy of his missionary homestead using it to draw water for
his house for nearly two decades. In
1866 ill health forced him to return to his hometown of Beloit, Wisconsin and
seek a different career. A cousin of
his, Samuel Shipman, convinced him to patent the machine (US Patent No, 68674). The “Eclipse” used a secondary vane, which
shifted angles, and was held in position by weights through a series of pulleys
to keep the windmill pointed at the optimum angle at all times. The galvanized steel tower stood thirty feet
tall with a six foot in diameter steel wheel.
The original Montgomery Ward Company (1872 – 2001) – a dry goods
mail-order business out of Chicago Illinois distributed the machine.
Wheeler’s
windmill was initially manufactured by L.H. Wheeler and Sons and was exhibited
at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's
Fair in the United States, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania along with Halladay’s
Self-Governing Windmill, and two other companies. Charles Morse later purchased an interest in
the company and merged it with Fairbanks Company to form Fairbanks, Morse &
Co. Morse asserted the reasons for the
machine’s success as:
1. “windmills
could be shipped in pieces and yet assembled and erected with simple tools by
people of ordinary ability;
2. their
parts were interchangeable, and thus repair were simple;
3. windmills
were made from durable materials; proper wood painted for protection and steel
which had been protected by galvanizing;
4. a
minimum amount of material was used, cost of raw materials, transportation, and
erection was kept at an economical level;
5. lubrication
problems were solved after the introduction of the self-principle early in this
century; and;
6. finally,
and perhaps most importantly, the American were self-governing.”
These
windmills allowed ranchers in New Mexico to graze their cattle over many square
miles of the arid high desert land. In
the Santa Fe area cattle farms such as the old Lamy/Simpson Ranch and others
used the technology – dotting the landscape with the tall, gawky, feathered
water pumps. Several of these machines
survive today: to the west of Casa del Oro; near the old Pueblo Indian sites on
the Simpson property; near Lamy; in the vicinity of St. Vincent Hospital; close
to the Wheelwright Museum; going north on I-25 to the southwest; visible in the
distance on the drive along The Turquoise Trail; behind the Guadalupe Credit
Union on Mimbres lane off of Rodeo Road; one just after the arroyo crossing on
Los Pinos Road (the road to El Rancho de las Golondrinas); and on the grounds
of the San Marcos Seed Store and Café on Route 14; and one, believed to be an
Eclipse, that is still operating in Eldorado just outside the second entrance
and across U.S. Highway 285 from Avenida Vista Grande.
In a 1997
interview for the book “Windmills and Dreams – A History of the Eldorado
Community and Neighboring Areas” Robert Dobyn recalled his summers visiting at
the Lamy Ranch on the property that is now Eldorado.
“Water was always a problem here….you know
where they have the Old Ranch Road and the art barns of U.S. 285, right behind
the dump – there are two wells back there…We used to have windmills on
that. When you had windmills and you
were running cattle, back in ’72, you were allotted commercial water rights,
and that’s where AMREP [the initial Eldorado developer] got their water. They consolidated all the windmills, and
obviously they weren’t going to use the windmills…
“Where my
parents lived in downtown Santa Fe, we had a windmill. It’s still [1997] there. Windmills were real common. There’s a ton of them. This one is on Old Santa Fe Trail by Kaune’s
[Market], where I was raised…The windmill operates on the suction
principle. Basically it’s a piece of
pipe with what you call “leathers”, and the leathers swell and suction around
the pipe. The leathers wear out and you
have to replace them. That means you
have to pull the pipes out, and that a lot of work, and we’d have to do that (on
the ranch). That’s how the cattle
depended on water. We’d build natural holding
tanks in the arroyos (as well).”
The Rancho
Viejo windmill is located at the corner of Saddleback Mesa and Mineral Hill, and
was manufactured by the Aeromotor Windmill Company of Chicago, Illinois. The company is still in business, now located
in San Angelo, Texas.
The Aeromotor
was first developed in 1883 by a mechanical and civil engineer named Thomas O.
Perry who (according to the company’s website) “had previously worked for U.S.
Wind Engine Company, of Batavia, Illinois, and had conducted over 5,000
scientific tests on 61 different experimental wind wheels. These tests had been
meticulously conducted indoors under controlled conditions, by mounting 5 ft.
diameter steel test wheels on a steam driven arm, which provided constant
artificial wind. His best test wheel was 87% more efficient than the common
wood wheels in use at the time.” The U. S. Wind Engine Company however showed
no interest in utilizing Perry’s discoveries. But LaVerne Noyes, a Chicago
manufacturer of dictionary stands and farm equipment, recognized the potential
and encouraged Perry to develop this “truly scientific steel windmill.”
Derisively
called the “mathematical windmill” by its competitors Aeromotor sold only twenty-four
windmills in 1888, its first year. In
1892 they sold 20,000 of the machines, and “Aermotor was on its way to becoming
the world’s dominant windmill.”
Because in
most cases these devices shipped to rural locations in the southwest where they
were assembled and put into operation by their owners, the manufacturers do not
have detailed records of their locations.
Thus, I have not been able to find any other information about the
Windmill Ridge landmark.
I believe
it can be fairly said that the self-governing windmill was a major factor in
how the west was won. Although the mill at
Rancho Viejo no longer pumps water – the sound of the sucker rod’s up-and-down
motion and rotating metal blades can still be heard, reminding us of the role
these devices played in Rancho Viejo’s, and New Mexico’s, history.
How a Windmill Pumps Water
The
water-pumping windmill is a simple, efficient design.
The
blades, also known as sails, of the windmill wheel catch the wind, which turns
the rotor.
The
wheel assembly is attached to a hub assembly by long arms.
The
hub assembly drives a geared mechanism that converts rotary motion to an
up-and-down motion.
That
up-and-down motion drives a long sucker rod, also known as a pump rod, up and
down inside of a pipe in the well.
Attached
to the end of the pipe is a cylinder with a sealed plunger going up and down
inside that forces the water up the pipe.
Each
upstroke pulls water into the cylinder.
On
the downstroke, a check valve in the bottom won’t let the water be pushed out,
so the water is forced up the pipe with the next upstroke.
Windmills and Dreams: A History of
the Eldorado Community; written and edited by Eldorado Volunteers; Eldorado
Community Improvement Association
Connecticuthistory.org
Wikipedia.com
aermotorwindmill.com
The Memoirs of Larry Meyer;
self-published; 2002
