Kirks Mills Historic District

Kirks Mills is a small rural village in southern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, that grew up around a grist mill built by Jacob Kirk, who acquired the property in 1810. The district contains a brick mill of Flemish bond, Jacob Kirk's mansion known as Patience, and a stone Eastland Friends Meeting dating from about 1798. Other buildings include a brick schoolhouse built in 1838, several stone and brick houses from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and a log barn and log house listed on the 1815 tax records. The village served as a local commercial center, with the mill processing farm products and a general store supplying goods from outside the community. Its houses range from early colonial to late federal in date, and many retain original flooring, hardware, doors, fireplaces and bake ovens. Only two buildings postdate the 1940s, and they are noted as intrusions. The district is significant as a well-preserved example of an early nineteenth-century rural community in Lancaster County.