Chili Mills Conservation Area

Along Big Black Creek in southwestern Monroe County, this fifty-acre district preserves the working landscape of a small family milling operation. Its core includes two frame houses from 1825 and 1835, a board and batten barn, an ice house, a mill dam, a metal truss bridge carrying Stuart Road, and a one-story frame grist mill built in 1901 after earlier mills burned. Across the road stands the Sibley-Stuart House, a cobblestone dwelling of about 1835 with a Federal doorway and oval gable window. The area is tied to Joseph Sibley, an early settler and miller who later held several public offices, and to later owners who rebuilt and operated the mills until 1925. A flooded flow site west of Route 33A is included because of its connection to the mill's history. Excavations by the Rochester Museum and Science Center uncovered a log cabin, a saw mill and a cooper shop, with artifacts dated 1825 to 1865. Together these remains document the sequence of milling development.