Equipo Williams

We were in the final two hundred meters of a hike from Dornbirn to Hohenems when we saw, in what appeared to be someone’s front yard, a water-wheel-powered saw-mill and a water-wheel-powered flour mill.  On closer inspection we found that it was the former site of a mill and the reproduction mills had been built in the 1980s by the final miller as a retirement project. 

As we were looking at the mills, the museum proprietor came out and invited us into what we assumed was a house but which was now the Stoffels Säge-Mühle museum.  He introduced himself as Bernd and invited us to stay for a tour of the museum.  Unfortunately, we had to meet my parents for coffee and cake at a café but we took his brochure and said we would return.

The other thing we had wanted to do in Hohenems was visit the ruins of Alt-Ems castle but we didn’t have the stamina to climb back up the mountain after our hike over from Dornbirn.  By the next morning we were feeling spry again (or at least not too sore) and so decided to go back to Hohenems, see the ruins, have another slice of cake, and then hit up the museum on the way out of town.  I’m always interested in seeing how things are made and especially interested in old machines that predate electronics where all problems are solved with clever mechanisms.

We hiked up to the ruins, had lunch and cake, then went to the museum only to find that Bernd had gone to lunch.  After about five minutes he came out of his house (which is next door to the museum), asked if we had waited long, and told us that if we gave him five minutes to freshen up, he would be back to show us around.

We started outside and he showed us the mills, explained how they worked, and told us briefly about the history of the museum and of the town.  This took about half an hour and then we went inside the museum.

Now on the previous day I had begun to suspect that Bernd had significantly more zeal than the average museum proprietor: he had a story to tell, and he wanted to show you how fascinating it was.  This turned out to be true, and possibly an understatement.  Bernd knew milling, and he was here to tell the story to the world.  The phrase that sticks in my mind was “before I show you the machines, I need to give you some theoretical background on wheat.”  Buckle up kids, we’re learning today.

The inside of the museum is all about the process and history of the milling of flour, which is told among a collection of the various machines involved.  He told us about cleaning the grains (and how bits of iron from horseshoe nails were a contaminant), ergot and ergot poisoning (illustrated with a reproduction of an old wood-cut showing a man getting his leg sawed off), how the requirements of flour milling dictate the construction of flour mills (five story building required), and only then did we get into the machines.

The machines date from 19^th and 20^th centuries.  There were machines for cleaning the grains, moving grain and flour around the mill (before 1950 this was conveyors and pater-noster style lifts, after 1950 pneumatic ducts), and crushing the grains to flour (old wooden-cabinet machines for local mills up to multi-flow mills for industrial production). 

Finally, while the old water wheels no longer exist to power the machines, they were connected to motors and could be run.  After warning the children that many millers lost fingers and hands because they got too close to a machine, he let them start the machines, probably 15 or so in total.  The noise and vibration was incredible, and in addition to the sifting machines were like giant metal and wood hula-hoopers swinging around everywhere you looked there were conveyors and buckets and screws moving that would have been transporting the flour.  It was a dramatic finale to see everything moving after hearing how it all worked and fit together.

The one-hour tour ended up taking about three hours.  Bernd knows milling, and I’m pretty sure I could now cobble together a basic flour mill from first principles.