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• mill in history
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• Introduction
• 3d Tour
• Panorama View
• Archival Footage of Mill
• Mill Blueprints
• Building the Mill

The Building of the Mill

When Mill #2 burned to the ground in 1921, the Company was eager to rebuild. Without a mill to process ore the Company could not make money.

The start of construction on Mill #3 was more difficult than the Company expected. The schist bedrock, upon which the foundations were to be built, broke badly and much more rock had to be removed than was initially anticipated. The clearing process started almost immediately after the previous mill was destroyed and continued until March 1922. In April 1922, the Company started pouring the concrete foundations and the actual construction of the building began in July of that year. The structural frame contains1426 tonnes of steel (equivalent to the steel in nine jumbo jets) and the outside walls are 24 gauge corrugated galvanized iron covered with two coats of paint.

Upon its completion on January 26, 1923, the Mill was one of the most impressive gravity fed mills in North America. In this type of mill, the ore moves through the building by the use of gravity. The ore goes in at the top and the separated concentrate comes out the bottom. Using this method, the building did not need a complicated conveyor system.

The Mill is approximately 20 stories in height. It measures 270 feet high and 209 feet across, with a total volume of 3,027,000 cubic feet. Sunlight streams in through nearly 1200 windows containing 18,792 panes, equivalent to 22,300 square feet of glass.

At the time, the total cost of the building was $953,484.59, which included all construction materials and the machines inside. That amount would be over 250 million in today’s dollars. The Mill was an engineering feat for its time, and mining and construction engineers from all over the world came to study it.