{"nrhp_refnum":"90001620","name":"Kauffman Mill","other_names":["Spengler Mill"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Jct. of Mill and Mill Hill Rds., Upper Bern Township","address_restricted":false,"city":"Shartlesville","county":"Berks County","state":"PA","lat":40.52516722250007,"lon":-76.0627326207036,"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 late eighteenth-century gristmill in Upper Bern Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, at the corner of Mill and Mill Hill Roads, combined with an attached half-timbered house. The stone mill is banked into the slope toward Mill Creek.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the mill is one of the oldest in Berks County and a rare surviving example of a custom gristmill that ground grain for local farmers. It is also regarded as an uncommon house-mill combination, with the house section of half-timber construction, and its interior retains early features and evidence of earlier water-wheel machinery.","narrative":"Built in the later eighteenth century on a slope above Mill Creek in Upper Bern Township, the Kauffman Mill combines a stone gristmill with an attached house of half-timber construction, a rare pairing in Berks County. The mill was powered first by a vertical water wheel fed from a storage pond and later by a turbine. It served local farmers as a custom mill, grinding feed and flour on two pairs of millstones into the 1930s, and it was operated by Sam Kauffman until about 1939. The house section, which was added soon after the mill, retains original plaster with painted polka dots and borders, wide poplar floorboards, paneled doors and wrought iron hardware. Its layout and surviving machinery remnants are considered valuable for understanding eighteenth-century milling. The mill is the only one of its type still standing in Upper Bern Township and is considered exceptionally intact for its period. The building has been vacant since its last operation and remains at risk of vandalism.","period_of_significance":"c.1780 to 1939","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","C","D"],"status_note":"Vacant since the mill operation ended; the building is not in good repair and has serious structural problems.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:36.21138-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/90001620.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90001620/332b38ace9-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90001620/332b38ace9-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Shuvaev","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kauffman_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:Kauffman_Mill,_BerksCo_PA_01.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71992330","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kauffman_Mill","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6378672"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/berks-county/kauffman-mill-90001620/"}