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Article: Windmills
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WINDMILLS
WINDMILLS.
In the seventeenth century windmills stood in what are now New York and northern New Jersey, but they did not become a feature of American life until after the Civil War, and then generally in the western United States. The occupation of lands beyond the belt of regular rain, springs, streams, and shallow underground
water tapped by hand-dug wells made windmills a necessity. Well-drilling machinery and practical mills made their use possible. Popularized in the 1870s, windmills came to dot the prairie states and the rough, arid, or semiarid lands beyond. They provided a way, before the invention of the gasoline engine, to supply water for personal and ...