It is interesting what triggers a person’s passion to collect and preserve a piece of American history. For 91-year-old Colorado rancher Robert “Bob” Emick, a decadeslong pursuit of resurrecting the country’s earliest and often forgotten waterpumping windmills began in 1981 with the discovery of a photograph showing his Aunt Elizabeth Hasser’s homestead at the turn of the 20th century near Lamar, Colorado. The vintage image showed an original Eclipse windmill next to the house. That was the moment that Bob knew he had to have one of these wooden windmills.
Evidence of the former Eclipse was discovered earlier by Bob’s wife, Helen, when the family garden was prepared. When the soil was tilled, iron pieces were churned up. These happened to be the Eclipse wheel clips that remained after the wood from the mill decayed.
The Eclipse windmill was first patented and manufactured by the Leonard Wheeler family in Beloit, Wisconsin, two years after the Civil War. The family sold Eclipse Wind Engine Co. to Fairbanks, Morse & Co., Chicago, in the 1890s. Its solid wooden wheels, made using multiple closely set, thin wooden blades, were manufactured in sizes ranging from 8-1/2 feet to 30 feet in diameter. Hinged wooden tail vanes allowed the mills to be effectively shut off in high winds. Eclipse remained a leading manufacturer
