Fowlers Mill Historic District / Fowlers Mill

Fowlers Mill Historic District, also, Fowlers Mill. . Side A , Fowler's Mill Historic District , Fowlers Mill (originally Fowler's Mills) developed around a group of mills built in the 1830s on the Chagrin River. Opportunities from these mills led to Fowlers Mill becoming the commercial center of Munson Township. From the 1830s into the twentieth century, the community expanded with construction of churches, a post office, township hall, stores, hotel, blacksmith shop, schools, and houses built in such styles as Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, and Queen Anne. This type of community center was common in rural, nineteenth century America, but rarely survives with so much original fabric intact. On Mayfield Road, the Disciple Church was built in 1842. East of the church, the brick central school built in 1913 replaced earlier one-room schoolhouses. The gristmill is the only mill standing in Geauga County. The cemetery contains burials dating from the 1830s. The Fowler's Mills Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. , , Side B , Fowler's Mill , The community of Fowlers Mill (originally Fowler's Mills) began in 1829, when brothers Milo and Hiram Fowler purchased land on the Chagrin River in Munson Township. The Fowlers immediately dug a millrace and built a sawmill. In 1834 they built this gristmill. Two years later they deeded land to William Lewis for a woolen mill. Farmers and tradesmen built homes in the community that grew up around the mills. Outstanding among these homes is the large, classically detailed house that Milo Fowler built next to the mill in 1840, a mansion in this frontier region. By the 1850s the sawmill and woolen mill had ceased operation. The gristmill operated almost continuously for more than one hundred years before closing in 1966. Rick and Billie Erickson refurbished the mill in 1986 so that it operates today, the only survivor of at least seventeen gristmills that once operated in Geauga County.