"Pine Creek Grist Mill" Top 5 Page for this destination Iowa Off The Beaten Path Tip by deecat

Click to see the school house and the bridge

On the way to Muscatine, we went to Wilcat Den State Park to see The Pine Creek Grist Mill and the Melpine Schoolhouse

After an "interesting" ride on back roads, we finally arrived. It was toward the end of the school year; thus, lots of classes of grade school children were on field trips here. We "tagged" along and listed to the tour guides.

Note: I will have much more about this whole complex on my up-coming Muscatine pages.

The mill was built on Pine Creek by Benjamin Nye in 1848 [it was the third mill he had built on this location because he kept outgrowing them]. They have some of the original machinery from the 1848 mill as well as newer machinery from 1927 that was added to increase production. 1927 was also the year that the State of Iowa purchased the mill from the Missel family. At that time, it became part of Wilcat Den State Park.

In 1996, The Friends of Pine Creek Grist Mill became organized with the mission of restoring the mill to operational format and in preserving the heritage of the mill. With the help of the Dept of Natural Resources, the State Historical Society, and the community, the mill's foundation has been stabilized, the structure and dam have been repaired, and the machinery is now in working order.

The Melpine one-room rural school is usually open on Sunday afternoons from one to five o'clock beginning in June. Because of the school children and their field trip, we were fortunate to see it inside and out. [I'm doing a tip about it in my Muscatine pages].

Grist Mill is Open:
May through October
Wednesday through Sunday
1:00 pm to 5:00 pm

othercontact: 1884 Wildcat Den Road, Muscatine
Phone: 563/263-4337