Our Vision: Understanding Our Past as a Bridge To the Future

Although its value was recognized by its owner and by local artists, historians, and others in Thorp and the Kittitas Valley, the Thorp Gristmill stood unused for 40 years. To restore it would be an expensive project, and there seemed no hope of obtaining the necessary funds, until a request for community centennial projects raised the hopes of a few former Thorp High School students.

The Thorp Mill Town Historical Society began with a handful of Thorp High School graduates who decided, for the sake of nostalgia, to preserve the old gristmill located near the edge of town. But in researching for the task, they found that history of the mill embodied all the best of the American ideal. The restless independence that drove the cattle-running Thorps and Splawns into the wild country of the Kittitas Valley. The pioneering spirit that brought J.S. Mills over the mountains from Puget Sound. The ingenuity that linked two mills, a log pond, an ice pond and eventually even an electric power plant into one integrated system.

Research also revealed that although the local mill once was the center of every small community, nearly all such mills are gone now, destroyed by fire or dismantled during the Second World War. In addtion, the North Star Mill’s unique combination of functions and its early production of electricity draw the interest of industrial historians nationwide. The Mill is, therefore, not just a local landmark, but a national treasure, nearly the last of its kind— a reminder of an American spirit that is all too often forgotten.

This knowledge laid a twofold responsibility on the TMTHS, to preserve the mill for the benefit of the local community and to make it available for the benefit of all Americans and indeed for citizens of other nations seeking to understand American culture and history. To this end, the TMTHS now devotes itself to developing the mill site both as an interpretive site and as a gathering place for community activities, maintaining and fostering the close sense of community and family and the enterprising spirit that is Thorp’s heritage, while allowing it to carry those values forward into the future and into the world community.

Along with the restoration and development of the North Star mill site, the TMTHS is currently at work expanding this web site to include a unique genealogy data base where descendants of Kittitas County’s pioneer families will be able to find not only text-based genealogical information but also photos of individual family members and historical photos of the Thorp area.

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