Flour mill now a restored lodge

By Mary Garrigan, Journal Staff Writer | Thursday, September 28, 2006

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BEULAH, Wyo. - Ask Gregg Forsberg why he spent a small fortune and expended enormous effort restoring a dilapidated flour mill into a modern resort lodge, and he answers with a question of his own.

“If not me, who?” Forsberg asked. “These old mills are the skyscrapers of the past. How many other people have got one?”

The Beulah flour mill was a towering edifice when it was built back in 1888-90 near the confluence of Sand Creek and Redwater Creek. Its four-story height, including a basement, was needed to house the machinery of a standard roller flour mill. An ascending system of gears, wheels, belts, buckets and rollers culminated on the top floor in a patented Swing Sifter System that transformed bushels of wheat into soft white flour that fell three stories into waiting flour sacks below. For the next 60 years, through a series of different owners, a system of rollers powered by the waters of Sand Creek cracked and crushed the grain that farmers brought from as far as 100 miles away.

About 1946, its last operator, the D.J. Toomey Milling Company, closed the mill’s doors and by 1968, when then-owner Melvin Shepperson predicted it would have to be torn down, the mill was in such a state of disrepair that it seemed destined to end its days as a mule barn.

But that was before the historic treasure was discovered by Forsberg, a businessman and entrepreneur, and his son, Garrett.

They are responsible for creating The Mill at Sand Creek, a beautifully restored guest home and resort lodge that can sleep 10. It has a fully furnished kitchen and will be marketed as an all-inclusive site for weddings, social events, family reunions and, Forsberg hopes, high-end Sturgis rally goers who can afford to spend $500 per night for lodging. The rental costs for the home are available at the Web site http://www.beulah.com/mill.htm

The mill’s unique history abounds throughout the house.

Pieces of salvaged machinery have been incorporated into the home’s decor, including a large iron wheel that hangs above the dining room table. An old wooden grain dryer does double duty as a decorative lighting element. Just inside the front door stands the last station of the old mill -- the chute through which the finished flour fell, to be bagged into flour sacks or packaged into barrels. And the Improved Motion Indicator, a device patented in 1882 that monitored the speed at which the rollers operated, holds a place of honor high on one wall. It is equipped with a bell and clapper that signaled when to stop releasing water from the mill’s dam along Sand Creek.

Like many flour mills of its time, this one was powered by water. A dam and flume diverted it from Sand Creek to the mill’s water wheel. At full capacity, it could provide four hours of power at a time, Forsberg said, but summer drought or winter’s freezing temperatures could also limit flour production. A ramp that leads to the home’s front door retraces the old flume’s path.

Other than those few mementos of its past, though, the men who built the mill, John J. Fox and Herman H. Reinecke, would no longer recognize it as the same building.

Beginning in October 2004, Garrett provided the hands-on demolition and construction labor, aided by Jim Gilbertson, Scott Gillis, Albert Conway and Apex Construction.

“We took one-and-a-half feet of hay and horse manure out of here,” said Garrett. The dining room floor is now a restored rough-hewn plank floor.

His father oversaw the design plans from his home in Florida and by telephone from various medical facilities while undergoing treatment for the non-Hodgkins lymphoma he is battling.

The house has 2-1/2 miles of tongue and groove wood paneling on its walls, and the golden hues of wood dominate the interior decor. Antiques collected by Forsberg and his wife, Karen, furnish the home. The kitchen, dining and sitting areas of the first floor are topped by a master suite with king-size bed, private bath and TV room on the second floor and a loft-style communal sleeping area on the top floor that holds four queen-size beds and two baths.

In addition to its 3,600 square feet of living space on three floors (the basement remains unfinished), the Mill at Sand Creek has nearly 4,000 square feet of two-story decks that surround the house on three sides. From it, there are scenic views of Sand Creek flowing past below and, in the distance, the Bear Lodge Mountains.

Sand Creek is a world-class trout stream, and Forsberg expects fly fishermen to use his lodge. The Vore Buffalo Jump, an archeological research project of the University of Wyoming at Laramie, is nearby. Forsberg sits on the Vore Foundation’s board of directors, and this year, he housed the archeology team at The Mill at Sand Creek.

They also hope to host social receptions and dinner parties that can be catered by the Bayleaf Cafe in Spearfish. The home can seat 34 for dinner inside and many, many more on its surrounding decks.

Eventually, Forsberg plans to offer outdoor wedding services at the Mill on Sand Creek, located, appropriately enough, in the town of Beulah, which in Hebrew means “happily married.”

Back in the mill’s most prosperous years, it was almost as much a social center as a business. Families would camp along the creek while they waited for grain to be milled. For many of them, delivering wheat to Beulah was pay day and play day, where they enjoyed a brief respite from the isolation of rural life, Forsberg said.

More than 100 years and $250,000 later, Forsberg is hoping that once again, the celebrations will come to Sand Creek.

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8410 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com