By Ron Brown
 
June 4, 2010
 
SHADY COVE, Ore. - John Cox has been collecting, repairing and restoring windmills for more than 20 years at his home between Eagle Point and Shady Cove.
 
"I never intended to have more than one windmill. I now have 22... And I'm not looking for anymore. But if something just right comes along, why, I'll probably grab ahold of it," Cox said.
 
Most of the machines Cox has set up at his house are at least 100-years-old. There are two primary types: The typical metal-bladed mill, and then what's called a "vaneless" mill that was popular in the Midwest, where high winds could tear the conventional mill apart.
 
"Windmills that have tails at about 30-miles-an-hour, why, they have to start shutting down because otherwise centrifugal force will pull them apart. And the vaneless, rather than shutting off, they open and close. The way that one there is right now, its open. It would be like, in a 50 mile-an-hour wind, but it would still continue to turn. Whereas a conventional windmill would be totally shut off," Cox said.
 
The conventional mills were made throughout the Midwest, even in California and Oregon. However, Illinois seems to have been the center of the windmill manufacturing world.
 
"From Chicago, which was Aermotor country, all the way down to the Rox River, Batavia and Elgin. That was the big windmill capital as far as producing; about a 50-mile stretch from Chicago to Batavia," Cox said.
 
Cox says there were about 20 manufacturers in that area at one time. Only a couple now remain.
 
Most windmills are made of galvanized metal. However, some vaneless windmills are wood-bladed. And most require greasing every week or two. That is one reason he doesn't keep them all in operation all the time. So it may be surprising that many even survived decades of wind and dust before being salvaged.
 
"I think a windmill was probably the most neglected piece of machinery that's ever been made. They'll run and run and run and run with very little maintenance," Cox said.
 
This aermotor mill is a unique all-in-one wind-powered operation that can do several jobs at once.
 
"If you had the wind you could operate every piece of machinery that's here, at one time. You'd be pumping water, you'd be grinding grain, you'd be cutting wood. Fabulous machines," Cox said.
 
It's likely that some of the windmills gathered by John Cox are one-of-a-kind, not known to exist anywhere else in the U.S.