Stibbs Mill

Stibbs Mill

Trading name	Mill Run; J. Stibbs' Mill; Empire Flour and Feed Mill; Naftzger Mill
Type	Grist Mills
Industry	Manufacturing
Fate	Dissolved
Founded	Wooster, Ohio (1809 (1809))
Founder(s)	Joseph Stibbs
Headquarters	Wooster, Ohio, United States
Number of locations	Located along the woods on the west edge of N. Bauer Rd.; Little Apple Creek crossed down where old Lincoln Way used to run which is now Sylvan Rd. About 1 miles east of Wooster at the foot of the hill at the end of Pittsburgh Avenue. The mill operated for 120 years before being destroyed by fire on June 21, 1929.
Key people	Joseph Stibbs

First grinding mill in Wooster, Ohio and Wayne County. It was also Wooster's first major disaster. Noted as maybe the Wooster's first industrialist. He later build an oil mill for the manufacture of linseed oil and a woolen factory.

• Mr. Robinson Poem
  • "God's blessing on Joe Stibb's mill
  • the hopper and the stones.
  • For it puts meat apon our back
  • And marrow in our bones."

Locations

• 0000 Unknown St., Wooster, Ohio 44691

Timeline

• 1809 - Established by Joseph Stibbs
• Explosion
  • Michael Switzer, Store manager was weighing out powder from an 18-pound keg
  • "At the same time several Native Americans were standing close smoking pipes filled with a mixture of tobacco, sumac leaves and kinnikinnick (yellow will bark}."
  • "Soon a puff of wind blew a spark from a pipe into the exposed powder causing a huge explosion."
  • "The mill was blown apart and Switzer was killed. The others suffered injuries."

Newspaper articles

Newspaper full-text articles

• August 12, 1891: "Mr. George D. Hatfield.... That his father Robert Hatfield...Stopped at the old Stibbs mill and sold the wheat at 33 cents per bushel...", Wooster Republican, p. 2.

• June 24, 2012: "When Wayne was a Whippersnapper: Ann" by Paul Locher, The Daily Record, p. 123.

• May 24, 2019: "Bits and Pieces: The old ‘Mill Run’ in Wooster" by Ann Gasbarre, The Daily Record, p. 123.