(Above) After being discovered, the wooden water wheel hub had to be kept wet, with daily watering for preservation.
A piece of Danville’s history from the 1800s is being preserved in a very creative way, with hopes to someday put it on display permanently. Last July, local historian Brian Makowski was walking the Vermilion River looking for signs of the past, something he does quiet often.
AUDIO: Old bricks, Danville bricks, and stuff like that. You can find a lot of stuff that’s kind of been washed up in the river since they’ve taken the dams out; the water levels have gone down quite a bit. So the hub, about an inch out of the ground, and I was just kind of curious. I knew it had to have been a man made item. I knew it wasn’t something that was just a branch, or a tree or a tree trunk.
Makowski’s family needed a trailer to transport the heavy water wheel hub after it was found.
For the next two days, Makowski worked with his son Jordan and granddaughter Sierra to dig up what turned out to be a pre-Civil War wooden water wheel hub; and a very unique one that operated horizontally rather than vertically. Makowski says it was likely used at the mill once run by Danville’s own Solomon Gilbert. And there’s a connection to this mill over at the Vermilion County Museum.
AUDIO: I’m thinking it was a grist mill, you know that broke down flour and made flour, and things of that nature. Because the museum actually has the grist mill wheel, it’s actually made of rock or stone of some sort. They actually have it out on display outside there at the museum.
A look at how the horizontal water wheel would have operated at a Pre-Civil War days mill.
As it turned out, since the wooden hub was buried in the river so long, now it needs to be kept wet, or it will deteriorate. For a while, Makowski was watering the hub daily while it was stored in his son’s garage. Now, with some help from the U of I Archaeology Department, it is being preserved in water, in an old horse trough, inside a city building. Next, it will need to be stored for two years in a special chemical before it can be put on display. Danville mayor Rickey Williams, Jr says he’d love to have it on permanent display along the river in Ellsworth Park, in time for Danville’s bicentennial in 2027.
