Mill City Museum

Mill City Museum
Mill City Museum
Established	2003
Location	704 South 2nd Street; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Type	Historic Museum
Director	David Stevens
Public transit access	Bus Routes 3, 7 and 22, METRO Blue Line, METRO Green Line
Website	www.mnhs.org/millcity
	Washburn A Mill Complex
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	U.S. National Historic Landmark
	U.S. Historic district; Contributing property
	The Washburn A Mill Complex from the Stone Arch Bridge
Location:	1st St. S. at Portland Ave.; Minneapolis
Built:	1879
Part of:	Saint Anthony Falls Historic District (#71000438)
NRHP Reference#:	83004388
Significant dates
Added to NRHP:	May 4, 1983
Designated NHL:	May 4, 1983

Mill City Museum is located in the ruins of the Washburn Mill. The museum opened in 2003, showing the growth of jobs in Minneapolis including flour milling and hydropower from Saint Anthony Falls.

The museum has a water lab and baking lab.

Flour Tower

The flour tower is the main attraction of the Mill City Museum. Visitors sit in a elevator and are brought to different floors of the building. The floors are designed to look like a fully operational flour mill. Visitors also hear voice recordings of people who worked at the mill.

History

Front of building

The original Washburn A Mill was built in 1874. It was the largest flour mill in the world. On May 2, 1878, the mill exploded due to flour dust. It was known as the Great Mill Disaster. It killed 17 people and destroyed five other mills.

In 1880, a new Washburn Mill was created as the largest flour mill in the world. The mill could make two millions pounds of flour per day.The mill became a National Historic Landmark in 1983

In 1991, a fire nearly destroyed the old mill. The mill had a good sprinkler system that would have ended the fire. The sprinklers were not on because no one was in the building.^[3] The building was turned into a museum by the City of Minneapolis in 2001.