Thorp Mill: Where Kittitas Wheat Became Flour

In April eighteen eighty-three, two partners opened the North Star Mill along the Yakima River in Thorp, grinding Kittitas Valley wheat into flour and livestock feed. The four-story mill became the valley's social and commercial hub: farmers brought their grain by wagon, ground it here, and caught up on the news while they waited.

The Thorp Mill operated until nineteen forty-six. What makes it unusual in the history of American milling is that it made the full technological transition, converting from old-fashioned stone grinding wheels to modern steel rollers, and its machinery survived intact. It is one of the few mills remaining in Washington state that documents that evolution. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since nineteen seventy-seven, it reopened as a museum in nineteen ninety-three, and local volunteers have been restoring its original equipment ever since.