Motor Townsite | |
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| Location | East of Elkader |
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| Coordinates | 42°48′28″N91°21′05″W / 42.80778°N 91.35139°W |
| Area | 17 acres (6.9 ha) |
| NRHP reference No. | 77000502 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | August 2, 1977 |
Motor is an unincorporated community in Clayton County, Iowa, United States. The townsite is also a nationally recognized historic district listed as a historic site on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. [1]
John Thompson, J.P. Dickinson and James O. Crosby formed a partnership in October, 1867 called John Thompson and Company. They planned to build a gristmill, a sawmill, a farm and a town that they called Motor. [2] The site they chose had been the location of a previous sawmill named the Downey Mill at Hastings Bottom. They began construction of the mill cooperage in August 1867, finishing the mill in December 1869. The mill was in operation by 1870, and a formal town plat was submitted for taxation at the Clayton County Courthouse in August, 1875. [3] Because of his success with establishing mills in nearby Elkader and Clermont, John Thompson was confident that Motor would be equally successful. [2] The townsite includes the gristmill, a bridge across the Turkey River, cooperage, smoke house, an old inn, and the livery barn. The site also contained a few houses, a school, general store and sawmill. [4]
A narrow-gauge railway was completed within 4 miles (6.4 km) of Motor in 1874. A station house was built, a station agent was hired, and track was scheduled to be laid in 1875, but a flood wiped out the ties and the railroad never made it to Motor. Chinch bugs wiped out the local wheat crop and local farmers moved on to other crops. In July, 1883, a major flood caused the operation of the mill to cease forever as a milling operation. The original investors were no longer interested in maintaining or updating the mill as stone grinding was becoming a thing of the past. The partnership that built the town dissolved. From 1883 to 1903 the properties were rented to local farmers until Louis Klink bought the property in 1903. He sold the mill machinery and he used the buildings for his farm operation. The property remained in the family for 80 years. [5] The Clayton County Conservation Board acquired the property in 1983. The area is now a 155-acre (63 ha) park with hiking trails, a primitive campground, and a place to launch canoes. [4] It is part of the Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area.
This is a list of properties and historic districts in Iowa that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There are listings in all of Iowa's 99 counties, adding up to over 2,300 total.
Moore State Park is a 737-acre (298 ha) public recreation area located in the town of Paxton, Massachusetts, USA, portions of which were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Moore State Park Historic District in 2004. Features of the state park include historical building foundations, a restored sawmill, Eames Pond, waterfalls and mill chutes as well as abundant azaleas, rhododendrons, and mountain laurel. The park is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.
The Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site is a former cotton plantation and state historic site in Juliette, Georgia, United States. Founded as a forced-labor farm worked by John Jarrell and the African American people he enslaved, the site stands today as one of the best-preserved examples of a "middle class" Southern plantation. The Jarrell Plantation's buildings and artifacts all came from the Jarrell family, who farmed the land for over 140 years. Located in the red clay hills of the Georgia piedmont, It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It is a Georgia state park in Jones County.
The Graue Mill is a water-powered grist mill that was originally erected in 1852. Now a museum, it is one of two operating water-powered gristmills in Illinois. It is located on Salt Creek in Oak Brook, Illinois, owned and operated by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County.
The James P. Hidley Cottage is a small Carpenter Gothic house in western Butler County, Ohio, United States. Erected in 1860, the house is important as one of the area's few houses of its style, and it has been named a historic site.
Ascutney Mill Dam, also known as the Windsor Upper Dam and the Mill Pond Dam, is an arch-gravity dam which is one of the oldest and among the earliest storage dams in the United States. It is made of cut granite and is located in Windsor, Vermont in Windsor County near the Connecticut River, where it functioned as a source of hydropower and, later, hydroelectric power. It is on the ASCE list of historic civil engineering landmarks since 1970 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places since January 09, 2007.
George Washington's Gristmill was part of the original Mount Vernon plantation, constructed during the lifetime of the United States' first president. The original structure was destroyed about 1850. The Commonwealth of Virginia and the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association have reconstructed the gristmill and the adjacent distillery. The reconstructed buildings are located at their original site three miles (4.8 km) west of the Mount Vernon mansion near Woodlawn Plantation in the Mont Vernon area of Fairfax County. Because the reconstructed buildings embody the distinctive characteristics of late eighteenth century methods of production and are of importance to the history of Virginia, the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places despite the fact that the buildings are not original.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Clayton County, Iowa.
The Hemlock Glen Industrial Archeological District is a historic industrial archaeological site in Hampton, Connecticut. It consists of a series of mill sites on a tributary of the Shetucket River that operated from the mid-18th to early 20th centuries. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
Batsto Village is a historic unincorporated community located on CR 542 within Washington Township in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States. It is located in Wharton State Forest in the south central Pine Barrens, and a part of the Pinelands National Reserve. It is listed on the New Jersey and National Register of Historic Places, and is administered by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Parks & Forestry. The name is derived from the Swedish bastu, bathing place ; the first bathers were probably the Lenni Lenape Native Americans.
Thorp Mill is a historic building located in Thorp, Washington, United States.
The Pine Mill Bridge is an historic structure located in Wildcat Den State Park in rural Muscatine County, Iowa, United States. It was built in 1878 near the Pine Creek Gristmill, the only place in Iowa where a mill and bridge combination remains in place. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998 as a part of the Highway Bridges of Iowa MPS.
Beeds Lake State Park is located northwest of Hampton, Iowa, United States. It was listed has a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places as Beeds Lake State Park, Civilian Conservation Corps Area in 1990. At the time of its nomination it contained 21 resources, which included one contributing building, 15 contributing structures, and five non-contributing structures. The 319-acre (129 ha) park surrounds a 99-acre (40 ha) reservoir. It features hiking trails, boating, fishing, swimming, camping, picnic areas and shelters, lodges and concessions.
The Motor Mill Historic District is a nationally recognized historic district located southeast of Elkader, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. In 1977 it had been listed as a contributing property in the Motor Townsite.
Corbett's/Eby's Mill Bridge is a historic structure located northeast of Scotch Grove, Iowa, United States. It spans the Maquoketa River for 128 feet (39 m). James S. Applegate established a gristmill near this location in 1858. He was joined by John Corbett, who obtained ownership by 1868 and expanded the operation and added a sawmill. He petitioned the Jones County Board of Supervisors for an iron bridge at this location in 1870. They agreed to pay two-thirds of the construction costs with the final third paid for by local subscriptions. The contract to construct this bridge and a similar span in Monticello was made with Miller, Jamison & Company of Cleveland. Both are single span bowstring truss bridges that were completed in November 1871. This bridge has always been identified with the mill. Samuel Eby acquired it in 1875, and it remained in the family until 1913. The bridge was originally on a loop road that circled behind the mill pond. When County Road X73 was created in 1958 it bypassed the bridge to the south. The bridge has been under private ownership ever since. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
The Huron City Historic District is a historic district encompassing the village of Huron City, Michigan, with structures located primarily along Pioneer Drive. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
The Fallasburg Historic District is a historic district containing the remaining portions of a nineteenth century hamlet surrounding the remains of a sawmill and gristmill. The district is located near the Fallasburg Bridge, where Covered Bridge Road crosses the Flat River in Vergennes Township, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
Notbohm Mill Archaeological District, designated 13LN296 in the state archaeological inventory, is a nationally recognized historic district located west of Alburnett, Iowa, United States. It includes the remnants of the mill's foundation, the mill race, and the now-dry mill pond along the east branch of Otter Creek. This was both a grist mill and a sawmill operation. The mill began operating in the late 1860s. Frederick Notbohm began building the mill facility, which is the subject of this district, in 1875 near the now-defunct town of Lafayette. It continued to operate into the late 1930s and the mill itself continued to stand into the 1970s when it collapsed. The historic district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
The Gurley-Mason Mill was a historic sawmill and gristmill located along the Fenton River on the north side of Old Turnpike Road in Mansfield, Connecticut. The mill was built around 1778, shut down around 1935, and demolished in the mid-1960s. The 2.31-acre site and ruins have been conserved by Joshua's Tract Conservation and Historic Trust since 2000. The Gurleyville Historic District lies two miles downriver.
Municipalities and communities of Clayton County, Iowa, United States | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cities |  | |
| Townships | ||
| Unincorporated communities | ||
| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |
| Clayton |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Ceres | ||
| Elkader | ||
| Garnavillo | ||
| Guttenberg |
| |
| Littleport | ||
| Luana | ||
| McGregor | ||
| Mederville | ||
| Millville | ||
| Osterdock | ||
| St. Olaf | ||
| Strawberry Point | ||
| Volga | ||