The Geldner Mill / The Big Woods

The Geldner Mill, also, The Big Woods. . , The Geldner Mill , This historic sawmill played an important role in the settlement, clearing, and development of the countryside in which it stands. The machinery was manufactured in the late 1860s by Halbert and Paige of Painesville, Ohio, and by D. Lane and Company of Montpelier, Vermont. It was shipped to LeSueur County by steamboat and placed in operation on upper Lake Jefferson, then moved in 1870 to this location where it has remained for more than a century. , Because of frequent financial panics between 1870 and 1900, the mill passed through the hands of a number of owners before Leonard Geldner purchased it from the McCabe brothers. Geldner had worked as a millhand for several previous owners before becoming the proprietor of the mill in 1906. , Leo Geldner, from whom LeSueur County purchased the mill in 1978, is of the second generation of his family to have worked much of his life at the Geldner Mill. , From 1978 through 1982 the mill was restored as a historic site by the county with local funds and the help of grants from the United States Department of the Interior and the Minnesota Historical Society. , The Big Woods , When Minnesota’s borders were fixed prior to statehood in 1858, they encompassed a rich variety of vegetation. The northeastern half of the state was covered with coniferous forests mixed with a few types of deciduous trees. In the southwest and in the Red River Valley the land was a grassy prairie, sprinkled with patches of timber along lake shores and on the banks of streams and rivers. , Between these two areas lay a belt of deciduous hardwood timber varying in width from 20 to 60 miles and known as the Big Woods. It was remarkable for the abruptness with which it rose from the prairie grassland on its southwest side and for the clear demarcation line that separated it from the evergreen-dominated northeastern forest. , The Big Woods was made up primarily of hard and soft maple, basswood, oak, elm, ash, hackberry, boxelder, and various nut trees. Pine and red cedar were its principal evergreen species.