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  • Le Sueur County Parks Director Don Reak swings open the door of the historic Geldner Saw Mill’s deteriorating boiler, which is in need of a $100,000 fix. John Cross

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  • The Geldner Saw Mill’s blade has only enough power behind it to cut through soft woods due to the decreased pressure of the mill’s failing boiler. John Cross

    geldner 2.jpg

  • The Geldner Saw Mill just south of Le Center helped clear expanses of south-central Minnesota forest that circa-1870 settlers called the Big Woods. It’s one of the few stationary steam-powered saws still operational in the United States and the only one in Minnesota. John Cross

    geldner 3.jpg

August 27, 2010

Historic sawmill is losing steam

Replacing boiler would cost $100,000 nobody has

By Brian Ojanpa Free Press Staff Writer

LE CENTER — The wood chips will fall where they may on the historic but failing Geldner Saw Mill near Le Center.

An aging boiler coupled with scant funds to replace it could quiet the only stationary steam-powered saw remaining in Minnesota.

“Our plan is to limp along with it for awhile,” Le Sueur County Board Commissioner John Grimm said.

But if an estimated $100,000 can’t be found to replace the machinery, the working sawmill fired up four times a year for the public could be reduced to an inanimate historic site.

The problem is that the 1939-vintage boiler powering the 130-year-old saw has lost pressure due to age.

“As age takes hold of the boiler, the metal gets thinner and thinner. It just wears down,” said Le Sueur County Parks Director Don Reak.

As a result, it can no longer safely buzz through the hardwoods that earned the sawmill its keep in pioneer days.

Hardwood sawing requires about 100 pounds of pressure. State inspectors have mandated that pressure be reduced to 80 pounds, which provides only enough oomph to cut softer woods — and further pressure reductions would jeopardize even that capability.  

Reak said the hurdles in acquiring money for a new boiler are twofold: Half the funds could come from a Minnesota Historical Society grant that the County Board has authorized Reak to apply for.

But for the county to receive the grant, it would have to provide matching funds. And in these times of state aid cutbacks to local governments, there’s nil spare cash in the coffers.

Grimm said that in his opinion there couldn’t be a worse time to underwrite a sawmill upgrade with county funds.

“All of us on the board agree that we have the intent of improving it, it’s just that the money is not available.”

Under the worst-case scenario, the sawmill boiler would continue to deteriorate, funds would remain unavailable, and the operational aspect of the mill would cease.

The sawmill began operating in 1870 and was among hundreds in the state at the turn of the century.

It then went dormant but remained largely intact over the years because its parts were never cannibalized, stolen or allowed to rust away.

The site was purchased by Le Sueur County in 1978. The mill was restored, and in 1983 it became a working-model museum piece with the help of $100,000 in state and federal grants.

It has been said that the sawmill helped carve a “European civilization” out of the Big Woods, which is what settlers called the dense broadleaf forest of south-central Minnesota that was rife with elm, basswood, sugar maple and red oak.

Those trees were largely cleared to farm the fertile soil they sheltered.

The Geldner Saw Mill’s next demonstration for the public is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 12.

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