The Baltic Mill comes with a long and storied past
By Amber Kanuckel
September 20, 2016
1777
If you visit Baltics Main Street, one of the first things youll notice is a big, beautiful three-story winery, the Baltic Mill Winery, owned and operated by Dan and Judy Garver. Step inside the winery, and youll quickly see this is no ordinary establishment. The beautifully preserved building comes with a long and storied history.
The Baltic Mill was first built in the mid-1800s by William Miller and Jacob N. Mast. At one time it was said to be the largest flour mill in Ohio, and it made use of the newly built rail lines in Baltic to bring in grains and ship out meal, flour and other goods.
Business went smoothly for many years, and the Baltic Mill became the heart of the town. However, on July 15, 1908, tragedy struck. The Baltic Mill, called Troyers Flour Mill at the time, caught fire and burned to the ground, taking Hoffmans Restaurant along with it.
The blaze also damaged many other businesses and homes including the blacksmith shop, a harness shop, the Meat Market, the Bank of Baltic, Rineharts Drug Store and the Post Office.
The fire is thought to have started at 9:30 p.m. Flames were first spotted by a young engineer named F.W. Huffman, who was in town to inspect a new bridge. The local volunteer fire department responded, and as the conflagration grew, the entire town including women and children turned out to fight the flames, according to a July 23, 1908, Coshocton Weekly article. They formed a bucket brigade to carry water to the burning mill.
Fortunately for Baltic it was an extremely quiet evening with no wind. Had there been wind, it is thought that much more of the town would have burned.
By 11:30 p.m. on that fateful evening the fire was still burning but was contained. Firefighters kept an eye on the situation to no avail. Inside the mill there were 2,000 bushels of wheat, a carload of corn, 150 barrels of flour and possibly other goods.
The piles of grain would occasionally burst into flames, threatening to throw the fire out of control once more. Eventually the mill burned to the ground.
Well never know for certain what started the fire, but that didnt stop newspapers and others from speculating at the time. One newspaper article even postulated the cause of the fire was spontaneous combustion.
The story I have heard, Dan Garver said, is it was a weekly tradition for some of the men to congregate at the mill on a particular weekday evening to play cards. The story goes, someone threw his lit cigar into the ash bucket as they always did, but this time someone missed the bucket and this lit cigar kindled the fire. Not sure if it is true.
Incredibly it seemed the fire was only a minor setback for Baltic. The owners of the mill decided to rebuild immediately, and less than six months later a new, modern mill was completed on the same spot as the original mill. The first brick was laid on Monday, Aug. 3, 1908, and the last brick was laid on Sept. 14. The mill was officially completed Nov. 21.
The flour milling machinery is nearly all manufactured by the Wolf Co. of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Garver said. Many of the pieces of equipment have patent dates of 1907, so this mill was state of the art in 1908.
That equipment is all still in the mill today beautifully preserved including the original Russel Steam Engine made in Massillon, Ohio, featuring a massive five-foot flywheel.
The new Baltic Mill was made from more than 240,000 bricks featuring 25-inch thick walls in the basement. It could produce more than 100 barrels of flour in 24 hours. For more than 50 years the new Baltic Mill remained operational, but it finally closed its doors in 1963.
The story of the Baltic Mill didnt end there, however. Alvin Miller operated a gift shop and bulk food store for a while, and then in the fall 2013 Dan and Judy Garver purchased the Baltic Mill with dreams of opening a winery.
That dream came true in October 2014, and now the building is known as the Baltic Mill Winery. The Garvers stripped out the shelving from the previous business, but Garver thanks Alvin Miller for the mills pristine condition. Inside the mill features the original woodwork including flour troughs running from the ceilings, and the second and third floors feature all the original machinery. The Garvers hope, among other goals, to preserve the Baltic Mill in as close to the original condition as possible.
