Preserving an American Legacy
Windmills used for water in remote, arid areas
By Craig Runyan
Whether supplying water for the homestead or to livestock on the range, the traditional water pumping windmill has been a key factor in enabling generations of farm and ranch families to secure a living from the land. The American windmill is an icon of the tenacity and endurance found in those who make unlivable lands useful and productive.
For many years, NMSU has helped to preserve the legacy and understanding of the modern American windmill. The annual NMSU Windmill Technology Workshop is a three to four day technical training that covers applications, site selection, wellhead construction, groundwater protection, mill construction and set-up, maintenance, repair and troubleshooting. Hands-on training is a large part of the workshop. Workshop students come from diverse backgrounds around the nation and the world.
The RGBI co-sponsored the 2007 Windmill Technology Workshop. For the first time in its long history, this year’s workshop was not held at the Windmill Technology Center on NMSU’s main campus, but at the Aermotor Windmill Company manufacturing plant in San Angelo, Texas. In addition to the classroom and field training, students saw how the only remaining American-made windmill is manufactured.
Pioneers called it ‘getting water from a turnip.’ Today it’s called drought mitigation. But any way you shake it, for well over a century, windmills have been the means and the essence of watering remote, arid and sometimes very inhospitable land.
