Milanville Historic District

Milanville is a village of wood-frame houses, a store and a schoolhouse built mostly between 1850 and 1910, set along River Road where Calkins Creek meets the Delaware River in Wayne County. The earliest surviving building is the Nathan Skinner House, framed at Tammany Flats and floated downstream on timber rafts in 1815. The Skinner family, who owned the village sawmill, were the valley's leading lumbering and timber rafting family, and Calvin Skinner gave the village its name. The Beach family ran the tannery, which produced leather for industrial belts. After the hemlock supply was exhausted, the tannery became an acid factory producing charcoal, wood alcohol and chemicals for explosives during World War I. The mills and factory are gone, but the residences and the Milanville Store, which kept its traditional function, still reflect those industries. The district is valued for its concentration of vernacular houses in Greek Revival and Victorian styles, and for its largely unchanged rural setting.