The Frankenmuth Woolen Mill
Near Frankenmuth, Michigan
On Main Street stands a working piece of Frankenmuth's farm past, the Frankenmuth Woolen Mill. It was founded in eighteen ninety four to turn the wool of local farm flocks into warm bedding, a genuine necessity for families facing brutal Michigan winters. The mill made socks, mittens, quilts, blankets, and wool batting, all from wool grown on nearby farms.
Its proudest chapter came during the First World War, when the mill is said to have made wool socks for American soldiers, the doughboys fighting in Europe. Those socks helped keep fighting men warm in the trenches. The mill has operated in its original location since eighteen ninety four and today still makes wool bedding, still carding wool and building comforters where visitors can watch.
It is easy to walk past it on your way to the chicken dinners and the Christmas store, but the Woolen Mill is a direct thread, quite literally, back to the sheep farms and hard winters that shaped this German community long before it put on its Bavarian costume.
