On Saturday November 6, the Stevenson History Program journeyed down to Talbot County, Maryland to see the oldest working mill in Maryland.
Caption: The front of Old Wye Mill. (Photo by GTJ)
Located just off Route 50 on your way to or from Ocean City, lies a hidden treasure: the Old Wye Mill. It’s an easy drive of just over an hour from our Owings Mills campus and is a perfect example of how a history field trip sets up learning in STEM fields.
Caption: The mill’s waterwheel. (Photo by GTJ)
The water feeds from a reservoir across the street — to the right of this photo–along a mill race that feeds the top of the brick structure in front of you. When the sluice is closed, the water spills out the side as you see here into a small stream. Opened, the sluice feeds water into the rust colored, open topped tank The tank distributes the water evenly across the top of the waterwheel. The weight of the water and gravity cause the waterwheel to turn. That turning motion drives everything inside the mill.
Caption: Creative Commons License (Malcolm Bours, 2017).