This is another installment in the “Before Blue Marsh” series, where I explore the remains of various properties that were razed in the 1970s to make way for the Blue Marsh Lake Project. See more here.

Lamm’s Mill was a three and a half story limestone masonry grist and saw mill which was built in 1844 for Daniel Lamm. The family of Lamm’s in this general vicinity can be traced back to Johan Peter Lamm, who immigrated to America from what is modern day Germany in 1740. Daniel was his grandson, and it is worth noting that another grandson, John, owned and operated a farm roughly 1/3 of a mile north of Daniel’s gristmill. That farm will be a topic of another article.

This mill replaced an older mill structure that was built around 1800 on the same site. It sat right along the Spring Creek, which gave it the power to turn the large wooden shafts. The mill underwent remodel around 1860. I believe it was around this time that a farm house and barn were also constructed near the mill.

Deed History

After Daniel’s death in 1886, son William sold the gristmill and farm to Heister and Kate Filbert. The Filbert’s sold it to their grandson Leroy Bollman in 1913 who deeded it to his mother, Nora Bollman (their daughter) the same year. Nora sold the property in 1916 to Wilhelm Weimann. After Wilhelm’s death in 1923 son Rudolph Weimann began farming the property. The mill was abandoned under Rudolph’s ownership in the 1930s as newer technology and methods of milling had rendered it obsolete. Rudolph died in 1972 and his estate sold the property to United States government for the creation of Blue Marsh Lake in 1976.

By the time the Army Corp of Engineers obtained this property for the Blue Marsh Lake project, the mill was already in an extensive state of decay. In the below photo, taken in November 2023, the fieldstones that once made up the walls of the mill can be seen scattered around the site – as well as pieces of its limestone foundation.

Below is a comparison photo of what I believe to be the same piece of limestone from the ruins of Lamm’s Mill, visible both in my photo and the 1976 LoC photo.

The articles below sum up a few of the happenings around Lamm’s mill in the 19th century. In 1878 fifteen year old Adam Kalbach was standing too close to a shaft when his scarf got caught. I feel a little bad chuckling at the misfortune of Adam, but there is just something amusing about the terminology “whirled around at a frightful velocity“.

The bridge that crossed the Spring Creek near Lamm’s Mill collapsed in April of 1893, when Jacob Speicher was attempting to cross it with a load of hay weighing two and a half tons. Jacob Speicher at the time owned the John Lamm farm mentioned in the first paragraph of this article. It is unclear which bridge this is referring to as there are two bridges in this area as visible below. The Reading Times does not hit the subject again until September 1913 when a grand jury recommended the construction of a new bridge near Lamm’s Mill.

In May of 1889 a band of Gypsies had squatted in the barn on the property.

The footings of what I believe to be the main bridge crossing the Spring Creek is visible in the photo below. Judging by the footings being concrete, this bridge was likely the one replaced in 1913.

The second bridge, which is roughly 500 feet northwest of the bridge pictured above, appeared to be smaller and had stone footings.

Below is an aerial comparison of the Mill in 1937, around the time it would have been abandoned, and in February 2018, in which all of the remains pictured above are visible. All of these remains are only visible when the lake is drawn down between October – April.