Still Turning: A History of Aermotor Windmills by Christopher G. Gillis (review)

When I greet visitors at the Windmill Museum, they are amazed at the variety of windmills on display. Well over 100 different wooden and metal windmills tell the story of companies seeking to design and build a dependable water-pumping windmill. I always ask them, “What three things settled the West?” Responses vary, but the real answer is “Guns, windmills, and the pickup truck.” That always draws a hearty laugh. Christopher Gillis has taken the windmill part of that question and produced a well-researched book describing the most successful metal windmill ever made. Following the enormous popularity of the Eclipse wooden water-pumping windmill, the Aermotor Company of Chicago manufactured a highly engineered wind machine that captured the entire world’s market for windmills.

Gillis’s very readable book is filled with details on how this remarkable machine was conceived, built, and sold by the hundreds of thousands. The Aermotor Company succeeded by taking a wheel designed by engineer Charles Perry and making a durable, efficient, and beautiful windmill that really could not be improved upon. It was just like reinventing the hammer: you couldn’t make it any better. Perry’s “mathematical wheel” is still working today. It’s not hard to take the wheel that is on an 1890 Aermotor and, with slight modifications, put it on a new Aermotor. It will work just like it did over 100 years ago.

Everyone likes windmills. Their images show up in advertising and artwork, and most western towns use them for their promotions. Wooden windmills like the Eclipse have disappeared from daily use, and what everyone sees today standing in the field is almost always an Aermotor. It is amazing how many of these were sold and are still being sold, although in greatly diminished numbers.

With clear explanations, pictures, and drawings on the internal parts of a windmill, Gillis gives the reader an understanding of how these sturdy wind machines work, along with a detailed history of Aermotor’s beginning by two unique men, entrepreneur Lavern Noyes and his trusty engineer, Thomas Perry. The culmination of their efforts was the 702 model Aermotor, the very best of the water-pumping windmills. They are still made today, and the history of that story is well worth reading.