{"nrhp_refnum":"90001617","name":"Guldin Mill","other_names":["Lauer's Mill"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Off PA 73 SE of jct. with US 222, Maiden Creek Township","address_restricted":false,"city":"Blandon","county":"Berks County","state":"PA","lat":40.43481828250006,"lon":-75.88093147840256,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1990-11-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Engineering","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A stone gristmill combined under one roof with an attached house on Guldin Creek just east of the village of Blandon in Berks County, Pennsylvania. The house section dates to 1781 and the mill section to 1822.","why_significant":"The nomination argues that the mill is the best surviving example in Berks County of a gristmill and house combined under one roof, and that it holds the earliest equipment of any county mill and is the most completely equipped. It also states that the house is a largely unaltered example of the Germanic three-room plan, and that the mill documents the development of milling technology from 1781 to 1940.","narrative":"Built of limestone, the Guldin Mill stands on Guldin Creek east of Blandon and combines a house and a gristmill under one roof. The house section bears a datestone of 1781 and has a center chimney and a three-room plan typical of Germanic building. The mill section, dated 1822 by its datestone, is one of the largest and most fully equipped mills in the county. Its interior holds two pairs of French buhr millstones, a turbine system, roller mills from the late nineteenth century, and early tentering gear. The nomination notes that the mill's wooden shafts and bearings from its earlier vertical water wheels survive, and that the building shows the change from meal bin to bucket elevator. Milling continued into the 1950s, and the mill is valued for documenting European folk practices among colonial settlers and the history of mill engineering.","period_of_significance":"1781-1940","architect_builder":"Frederick Schmale (builder of the 1781 house section, with Hannah Schmale); Frederick Guldin (builder of the 1822 mill section)","architectural_style":"Germanic center-chimney style","criteria":["A","C","D"],"status_note":"The mill is in generally good condition and its machinery is largely intact; the owner has rebuilt the water system and is restoring the machinery to working order.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:35.740849-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/90001617.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90001617/c768f390bb-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90001617/c768f390bb-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Shuvaev","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guldin_Mill,_BerksCo_PA_01.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Shuvaev</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:Guldin_Mill,_BerksCo_PA_01.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71992332","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guldin_Mill","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5617347"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/berks-county/guldin-mill-90001617/"}