By Tom Hintgen

Otter Tail County Correspondent

Family members who recall parents and grandparents telling stories of hauling wheat to Phelps Mill appreciate the many changes these days at Phelps Mill Park. Enhancements include boardwalks near the Otter Tail River, north of the mill, and renovation plans for the nearby Phelps Mill Store.

Area family members have passed along stories of delivering wheat to Phelps Mill from one family generation to the next. Located in Maine Township of central Otter Tail County, the mill was in business from 1889 to 1939.

“I recall my mother talking about her dad hauling wheat to the mill via horse-drawn wagon,” said Phyllis Nelson Rossow of rural Rothsay. “He would be gone two days driving from rural Erhard, waiting for the wheat to be ground into flour, and then traveling back home again.”

Continues Rossow: “Mom was born in 1916, and my grandfather died when she was 11, so this would have been in the 1920s for her to have this memory.”

Phelps Mill was designed to produce 60 to 75 barrels of flour per day. At the height of the wheat grinding season, 25 to 35 wagons loaded with stacks of wheat would line up outside the mill. Nearby was a restaurant, general store and blacksmith shop.

Phelps Mill was very successful until 1900, but after that year business gradually declined. William Thomas sold the mill in 1919. By the 1930s the railway was in place and it became easier for county farmers to ship their grain to Minneapolis. Phelps Mill went out of business in 1939.

In 1965 Otter Tail County purchased the mill and surrounding land as a recreational site. Phelps Mill was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. 

The nearby Phelps Mill Store, used in previous years by visitors who purchased ice cream, pop, mill-related memorabilia and other items, will be repaired. Plans are in place to receive grants through the state of Minnesota.

“I remember eating ice cream at the store,” Rossow said. “I look forward to seeing the store repaired and usable again.”