Established | 1851 (original) June 11, 1988 (museum restoration) |
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Location | Stansbury Park, Utah |
Type | restoration and replica museum |
Visitors | 10,000 - 12,000 per year |
Director | Jody Brunson |
Website | http://www.bensonmill.org/ |
Coordinates: 40°38′58″N 112°17′48″W / 40.649387°N 112.296753°W Benson Grist Mill is a restoration-replica museum located in Tooele County, Utah in the western United States, which allows visitors to see the inner workings of a latter-nineteenth-century pioneer gristmill. It has four other historic (nineteenth-century) buildings which have been moved onto the site, as well as four ancillary structures, including an open-air pavilion. It covers 6.98 acres (2.82 hectare) along State Highway 138, 0.8 mile southwest of the intersection of the Road with State Highway 36 (known as Mills Junction). The museum is owned and operated by a division of Tooele County.
History of Tooele County, published by Tooele County Daughters of Utah Pioneers in 1961, states: "A gristmill was built in 1854 at Lake Point, then known as Twin Springs Creek. Thomas Lee was hired by the church corporation to erect the mill. It was located near the Saw Mill and Tannery. Among members of the corporation were John Rowberry, Ezra T. Benson, Benjamin Crosland. Rowberry moved his family from Tooele to the mill location where he supervised the mill. E.T.Benson acquired sole ownership of the mill from the corporation as is attested by the following bill of sale copied from the records of the county. 'June 23, 1866, E.T. Benson to Brigham Young the sum of $3,333.33 for all claim to the gristmill known as Bensons Mill located on Twin Springs. Consisting of an adobe dwelling house, sheep sheds, cattle and sheep corrals, pig pens, hen house and all other out houses; also water rights.'
"This mill (the original building still exists) was noted for its honesty and integrity. A favorite expression of the early settlers, when the safety of their possessions was in question was, 'As safe as flour in the lower mill!'