{"nrhp_refnum":"90001616","name":"Griesemer-Brown Mill Complex","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Brown's Mill Rd. at Monocacy Cr., Amity Township","address_restricted":false,"city":"Birdsboro","county":"Berks County","state":"PA","lat":40.302563566500055,"lon":-75.78244398798816,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1990-11-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A stone gristmill and farm complex in open farmland along Monocacy Creek in Amity Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, with its miller's house and outbuildings on about four acres. The mill was built in 1843.","why_significant":"The complex is significant for its association with the county gristmill industry, as a representative example of a mill operated as part of a family farm. The mill is regarded as a good representative of a country custom mill of the mid-nineteenth century, one of eleven surviving intact mills of its type in the county's survey. The mill, house and outbuildings have been associated with one another since construction.","narrative":"Built of red sandstone in 1843 on Monocacy Creek in Amity Township, the Griesemer-Brown mill is a stone gristmill of one and a half stories plus a basement, set with a miller's house and outbuildings on about four acres of farmland. Its milling history began with the Griesemer family, who are shown as owning the mill on maps of 1816, 1854 and 1862, and in 1850 it had two pairs of millstones and processed 8,000 bushels of corn and rye annually. George Brown started the milling business in 1871, and his family operated the mill into the twentieth century. The complex is valued for its association with the county gristmill industry and for the way the mill, house and farm buildings functioned together as a single working farm. The mill ceased operating in 1957. The property's interior still holds its millstones, a cornmeal roaster and a separator, which reflect its changing technology.","period_of_significance":"1830-1939","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Vernacular","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"At present the property is a working farm.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:36.400662-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/90001616.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90001616/39ce834968-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90001616/39ce834968-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brown_Mill_BerksCo_PA.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brown_Mill_BerksCo_PA.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71992400","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griesemer-Brown_Mill_Complex","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5608712"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/berks-county/griesemer-brown-mill-complex-90001616/"}