The Old Edinboro Mill

Built as a New Process flour mill in the borough of Edinboro, the Old Edinboro Mill, also known as the Old Culberton and Keystone Mill, once stood where Edinboro Lake’s dam sits today, the dam now serving the recreational needs of the lake’s fishermen. Edinboro Lake originally supplied water to Culbertson Mill on one side of the stream, and a saw mill on the other side, and then later, to the Keystone Mill.

The early mills begun in 1801, with William Culbertson, who had John Campbell construct a log grist mill a distance upstream from today’s dam. In the following year of 1802 William Culbertson then built a saw mill across from the grist mill; Shortly afterwards, another saw mill was built at the dam on the west bank. The Culbertson Grist Mill, the third grist mill built in the county at the time, were small crude log structures, operating using the low milling system.

In 1856 William Culbertson's son, who operated the mills, sold the Culbertson Mills to James Reeder and Isaac Taylor. In that same year they replaced all the mills with a new mill at the dam, installing modern merchant milling machinery of that day. The modern machinery incorporated the Oliver Evans automated flour milling system along with the New Process flour milling technology. The mill was a Greek Revival structure which was powered by water turbines. The mill originally had two pairs of millstones with a roller-milling system that was added later. Reeder and Taylor continue to operate Keystone Mills for many years.

The mill was very prosperous until the turn of the century when, Reeder and Taylor, sold the mill. From then on the mill saw a great number of owners as it declined. The last miller to use the mills’ roller-milling system, dressing and using its millstones, was George Brookhouser, who came from a milling family, his father was one of the owners and operators of the Venango Roller Mill. While Brookhouser operated the mill, his wife, ran a store in town.

The last miller to operate the mill as a flour mill was Pearly C. Harned, who gave the mill its red coat of paint with white trim. In large white letters was painted Keystone Mills, Edinboro, Pa. above the drive-through of the loading dock. Mr. Harned ground wheat flour, but by far his buckwheat flour was the most popular. Mr. Harned added a steam engine to the south-side of the mill for when the water level was low during the summer months, it had a tall metal smoke stack which stood above the mill from a small shed added to the building.

During the Great Depression, Pearly Harned had lost ownership of the mill and the Grange League Federation (G.L.F.) took over the ownership and operation of the mill, converting it to a feed mill. Grange League Federation abandoned operating the mill with the waters of the Edinboro lake, and installed a tractor to run the mill. One of the water turbines was removed from the mill and was installed in a small building behind the mill to be a back up to the electrical generation plant for the town of Edinboro.

After the depression people had begun complaining about the old mill being a fire trap. In 1959 when the local Boy Scouts had a newspaper collection drive, and they needed a place to store the newspapers temporarily, the borough said that they could be stored in the old mill, this made people complain all the more. Finally the structure, which was sound, was demolished in October of 1959. People thought they could push the mill down, but the quickly learned they had to dismantle it peg by peg. The old mill went to a sad grave to become landfill for two Edinboro cemeteries and filling for the Conneaut and Edinboro lake’s overflows. In the mill were Black Cherry beams 18 inches square, some of them up to 50 feet in length, all going into the landfill along with any remaining machinery that was inside of the mill.

Keystone Mills (1920)

The Old Edinboro Mill Dam (November 10, 1911)

The Old Edinboro Mill Dam

The Downstream Side of the Keystone Mill