NARRATIVE: Through American ingenuity, God answered the prayers and heart’s yearnings of ranchers and farmers in middle America, such as the Great Plains regions where drought was common, through the development of the windmill. These self-regulating water pumps quickly became treasured and required for large crop productions and cattle ranchers to maintain their herds and supply much needed food to all of America.

Western expansion owed much of its success to these windmills as they were set up along the train routes every twenty miles with their water storage tank nearby in order to keep the steam engines cooled. Aluminum, metal sails helped increase rotation abilities with its lighter weight and durability compared to earlier wooden sails.

European windmills, though amongst first produced water systems, were wooden or cloth sailed and were not set up to be portable, which was what was needed for the United States. They also required the use of nearby rivers to capture their streams and benefits.

The American systems pumped water from the Earth’s mantle, deep from the natural underground resources. Soon, large water tanks were placed near the windmill to capture the water and provide more storage capacity compared to simply digging motes and using troughs alone.

Many companies secured the rights to make their own versions, each with unique features and characteristics such as tailbone and vanes acting as rudders to help the sails capture the most wind benefits as it directed the sails into the winds.

The U.S. Wind Engine & Pump Company from Illinois, invented by Daniel Halladay and co-owned by businessman John Burnham in 1851, is said to have invented the first commercially viable windmill and patented the design.

Butler Oilmatic, Dempster 12A, Baker Direct Stroke, Southern Cross, The Whizz, Fairbury No. 33, Aeromotor 602, and others quickly added their names to the list of companies to which the United States and its citizens owe a debt of gratitude to for their life-changing invention and superb products in water windmills which added to American industry and its successes.