Up until the 1950s, Kendallville was home to a windmill production company. They made their last windmill over sixty years ago, but the city keeps that legacy alive by having one of the only windmill museums in the country.
There, you can find windmills from different centuries and places all across the country, and the museum wants to add even more. But the museum first needs to raise money to keep its current exhibitions running.
Before touring the Mid-America Windmill Museum’s 53 windmills, guests are invited to watch a movie to learn more about the science of wind.
“We here at the Mid-America Windmill Museum will be working hard to add more windmills and exhibits and their stories to our collection,” the movie says.
But before the museum can add more windmills, it has to have the money to maintain the windmills it has on display.
Tom Burke is a volunteer for the museum. He estimates it will cost $100,000 to repair the windmills. They’ve received a match for up to half of that, but need donations to cover the other half.
“We started out with eight windmills and now we got 53. But after 21 years, some of those windmills are starting to need repair,” Burke said.
Todd Skinner is helping to restore the windmills. He says the museum hopes to have all of the windmills repaired before it hosts the 2017 International Windmillers’ Trade Fair, which he says will bring in about 200 dedicated windmill enthusiasts to Kendallville.
Skinner became interested in restoring windmills when he found one in the woods and started fixing it up.
“It’s the challenge of taking a rusted piece of equipment like a windmill mainframe or gear box and, that is completely nonfunctional, and bringing it back to life to where it would have looked like when it was brand new,” Skinner said.
The museum also plans to add more windmills. They currently have a collection in storage that are waiting to be restored.
Burke says before he helped start the museum in 1994, he didn’t know much about windmills. Now, the 79-year-old and his wife spend a lot of their time working at the museum.
“When you retire, you have to have something to do. You have to have a reason to get up in the morning. And this happened to be my reason,” Burke said. “So I enjoy coming out here, but plus it’s very easy to get interested in the history behind windmills.”
Looking around the nearly 40 acres of the museum, there are some windmills that are just empty towers, missing the wheel that allows it to spin. About seven of the windmills have been taken down for repairs.
But until the Mid-America Windmill Museum receives more donations, the rest will go unrepaired. Burke expects the fundraiser to take a few years to reach the $50,000 goal, but he is hopeful the museum will receive support so the windmills can be repaired, with more added in the future.