The history of milling in rural Minnesota is embodied in the story of Phelps Mill. By the late 1800s, wheat was the king of crops. Flour was in such demand that hundreds of mills operated throughout the state. In Otter Tail County the abundance of water power lured entrepreneurs with dreams of turning the county into the largest flour producing area west of Minneapolis.

One such man was William Thomas who worked in the flour and feed business in Fergus Falls before purchasing 37 acres in Maine Township. On this land there is a point where the Otter Tail River is both narrow and swift as it sweeps down from hill country to meadowlands. It was a perfect spot for a dam and flour mill.

(quote from William Thomas’s diary)
“April 4, 1888, got up at 4 a.m. and began to fill sacks with sand to stop leaks.”

Before building a flour mill you had to have a dam to harness the water power. It was a difficult task. Thomas’s timber frame dam required constant maintenance to plug frequent leaks.

“August 11, 1893. Hauled brush and trees and put them over bank above dam where bank washed out. At noon a leak started, Adams and Abe worked all afternoon putting in manure and getting gravel from below dam.”

When Thomas’s Maine Roller Mills opened for business in December 1889, it had considerable success. Farmers from miles around lined up outside the mill to have their wheat ground into flour. After grinding more than 44,000 bushels of wheat in 1895, Thomas constructed an addition to buckwheat and rye.

Business gradually declined as the mill found it harder to compete with the great mills in Minneapolis. William Thomas sold the mill in 1919 and in 1939 the doors permanently closed.

Otter Tail County purchased the abandoned mill and surrounding land in 1965. Today, Phelps Mill stands as a historic landmark, a reminder of a different era in Otter Tail County.