Custom Windmills
Jefferson Windmill
Des Plaines Windmill
Oakton Street and River Road
Des Plaines, IL 60016
Status
Destroyed by owner
Owner
Luther Jefferson (1841 - ?)
History
Only known history is that one of the founders of Des Plaines, Luther
Jefferson, operated a farm along the Des Plaines River south of Oakton
Street, and in 1841 he began operating a windmill, which was “soon
replaced” by a large water mill. At present, not much is known
about Jefferson’s windmill. Nearly all of the descriptions and
evidence of a windmill ever being present near Des Plaines is mistaken
for the
Brockman Windmill in Schiller Park (with its unmistakable tail fan
in the cap). Some sources say that Jefferson’s was converted from
a grain mill to a saw mill to aid railroad construction; other sources
state just the opposite.
In 1992, a commemorative jar with what was supposedly Jefferson’s
windmill depicted on it was actually Brockman’s windmill from an old
1900s postcard.
Source
-Chicago Fact Book Consortium. Local Community Factbook: Chicago Metropolitan Area. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1985
