Across the fence
Wind and Water in the West

courtesy of Tim nolting by Erwin Hinckley Barbour
An 1890's homemade Jumbo windmill on the farm of W. W. Goodrich, Bethany, Nebraska
I remember my first trip off the farm and outside of Atchison County, Kansas. I was probably nine or ten years old and traveling with my Grandpa Nolting, heading west to Colorado. Somewhere, just past the Kansas/Colorado border, in the seemingly endless stretch of open prairie, there stood a huge stock tank being fed by two windmills. In my untraveled curiosity and ignorance I asked grandpa, "Why do they have two windmills?"
Without hesitation grandpa replied, "The wind out here is so strong a single windmill can't handle it."
"Oh" I said, not figuring out until sometime later that he was k...
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