SW DT-301 A Texan Windmill

To open up vast areas of land in Texas, a constant water supply was needed.  The European windmill with its bulk and need for constant attention was not suitable and in 1854 a solution arrived with the invention of the American windmill in Connecticut.  The need of a windmill in Texas was primarily to pump water.

The American windmill had a vane or “tail” as it was called by Texas cowhands that functioned to direct the wheel into the wind. The wheel was a circle of wood slats radiating from a horizontal shaft and set at angles to the wind, designed so that centrifugal force would slow it in high winds; thus, the machine was self-regulating and operated unattended. Its simple direct-stroke energy converter consisted of only a shaft and a small fly wheel to which the sucker rod was pinned. This compact mechanism was mounted on a four-legged wood tower that could be constructed over a well in one day.

The railroad builders were the first to use windmills but windmills soon moved to the ranches. By 1900 windmills were a common sight in Texas. Inhabitable land was no longer limited to regions with a natural water supply. The windmill made the most remote areas habitable.

In 1888 the windmill industry shifted to the backgeared, all-steel windmill. By 1912 few wooden windmills were being sold. The windmill was the prime supplier of water in rural Texas until 1930, when electric and gasoline pumps began to be widely used.

Texas was (and probably is) the largest user of windmills in the United States.

This postcard came from Aimee Dars Ellis (30 September 2014) Swap-bot.