Orange Mill Historic District

Powder Mill Road in Newburgh, New York, leads to the remains of a black powder works that operated from 1815 into the early twentieth century. Much of the site now lies within Algonquin Park. Stone ruins of wheel mills, a charge house, a saltpeter building and a cylindrical wash and change house sit among three mill ponds fed by Quassiac Creek, linked by sluiceways that once drove turbines. The buildings were spaced apart to limit damage from explosions. Daniel Rogers acquired the mill in 1818 after earlier explosions, and Smith and Rand later expanded it to 190 acres. Its Orange brand sporting powders gained a strong reputation, and production peaked in the 1890s. The district was listed because few powder mills of this scale survive, and the ruins and water system show how the technology worked. In the 1930s the site became a park, and fireplaces and a shelter house were added. Some ruins stand three walls high.