The Willowmoor Farm Windmill in Redmond

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6046 West Lake Sammamish Parkway Northeast, Redmond, Washington, Downtown Redmond 98052

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A lovely addition to the stately front lawn of the Clise Mansion, the Willowmoor Farm windmill is located just outside the main tree line of the former home, near the Sammamish Slough. It is Dutch in design, with a tapering, octagonal main shaft capped by a shingled, red, pointed dome. The question we're most often asked is, what did the windmill mill? The answer is unfortunately, opaque. There are authoritative sources which state that the windmill was never used for its intended purpose. And there are more authoritative sources that claim it saw brief service. Who's right? At this point it's hard to say.

The King County Division of Parks is quite clear on its web site, "The park's iconic windmill ... has never been functional!" However, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote in March, 2002 that the windmill, "was once used to pump river water."

It is reasonable to believe that the windmill was purely decorative. Though it is near the Sammamish Slough, it is not close enough for the mill to use it as a power source. Also, the blades of the windmill appear unable to turn with the direction of the wind, lending credibility to the notion that this was never a working mill.

But Seattle's Museum of History and Industry has in its collection a photograph from the early 1900's that clearly shows the windmill on the banks of the slough. It's possible that the course of the waterway was altered over the years. An article at the Windmill World also speculates that the windmill wasn't used for milling, but perhaps for pumping water from the slough.

If we dig up definitive proof one way or the other, we'll post it here.

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