"Haines Mill, an example of the Lehigh Valley's agricultural heritage, is at the west end of Cedar Creek Park. It is a grist mill that dates back to the US colonial times. The mill uses water power to grind crop grains into flour. The original mill was built around 1760. The mill that stands now was built around 1850 and was reconstructed in 1909 after a fire gutted the interior of the building and operated until 1956.
Lehigh County purchased the mill in 1972 for preservation. Two years later, it opened as a museum. In 1981, Haines Mill was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. Today, the mill is owned by Lehigh County and operated by the Lehigh County Historical Society. Visitors can watch the mill operate as it did when it was a commercial facility."
The above is from Lehigh County's website and in a very brief way explains the history of the site and the building. The mill is open for public tours from 1 to 4 PM on Saturdays and Sundays from May to September. Tours are given by volunteers from the Lehigh County Historical Society with Lehigh County picking up the bills for any maintenance and upkeep.
The tour that we had lasted a little over an hour and a lot of that has to do with no one else being on the tour and I would imagine that no one else was going to be touring the mill that day. While interesting, this is a bit off the beaten path and off of most people's radar.
The tour covers the first two floors of the building and a lot of what is there looks very much in tact as if with a little TLC it could be operated with very little effort. I read on line reviews from another site that if you ask the volunteer will per se turn the mill on so that you can see the belts/pulleys operate but the person who we had seemingly had very little knowledge of the site and no idea how to operate anything.
Overall this is local D-List history and it's worth it I suppose because it's free and if you're a local your tax dollars support the upkeep so you might as well see what the hell is going on. read more