Thompson's Mill (once Boston Mill)

     Last week I had an early-morning interview scheduled with the park ranger at Thompson's Mill State Heritage Site near Shedd . It was one of the first really chilly fall mornings and a foggy drive through beautiful farmland set the sepia-photo mood for delve into a chapter of Willamette Valley history.

     The gate was closed when I arrived so I parked and made notes while admiring the gorgeous fall colors surrounding this site on the Calapooia River. After a few minutes, I looked up to see a young woman approaching the gate, then opening it. What was most striking about that simple act was the crowd that followed her: a huge flock of chickens in lock-step with her every move. They knew exactly what her next chore was: breakfast! Sure enough, by the time I grabbed the camera and followed them, the menagerie had expanded to include ducks and turkeys and they were noshing away in the nearby field, just this side of the garden fence.

     I was soon to learn this is part of the park's plan to bring this flour mill and its history to life. The original founders, and later the Thompson family, lived on the property, as did some of the mill workers in the late 1800s and early 20th century. Many took meals in the big family home. Gardens and animals were what fed everyone, along with baked goods made with flour from the mill.

     There is  rich history to discover here and the more you dig, the more you think about what life

must have been like back then and how much easier our lives are today. The mill was founded in 1858. Bread wasn't purchased in supermarkets back then., people made their own. And since this was wheat-growing country, the grain came straight from the fields to this mill in heavy bags on wagons. Almost a century later, when bigger mills and big-name bakeries came on the scene, people didn't make their own bread as much. Eventually, Thompson's Mill couldn't compete and had to move on to milling animal feed. The flocks that roam the grounds today must be channeling that history.

     Before this mill was built, there were thousands of little ones on streams and smaller rivers in the foothills throughout the valley, grinding grain, carding wool and carrying logs. In fact, the main "highway" was the Willamette River, which carried goods and people from the valley north towards Portland.

     While Thompson's Mill was cutting-edge for many decades, eventually it could no longer keep up with the changes in production and commerce. Besides milling flour and later animal feed, it also produced electricity. In fact, the house and mill had electricity well before the rest of rural Oregon because the mill, already using hydro-power to operate the grist stone, produced its own.

     Today we think of rivers more for sports and pleasure, but there was a time when they were key to economic survival. I learned a lot from Ranger Tom Parsons and look forward to returning to learn more. I'll share some of it in the winter issue of Take Root Magazine but I encourage you to explore it yourself too. I highly recommend the Peoria Road/Fayetteville Road route. You can ponder all the horse-drawn wagons that travelled dirt roads from these very farm sites to the mill. Imagine the fragrance of  bread baking in wood-burning ovens wafting through the countryside, made from wheat grown right there and milled just up the road.
       "Slow food" and "locavore" weren't in vocabularies back then, they were just the way of life.