Misc.-Wind Power Center TB03

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Photos in the travel bug logs are appreciated.  I will be re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

Laminated Photograph. The bug owner grew up on a farm in Kansas, where every rural home site and livestock pasture had to have at least one windmill to provide water.  Most of them were noisy and anyone who grew up on a farm before electricity will instantly recognize the sound.   In the 1930s my father sold Winchargers to farmers.  They were wind-driven electrical generators that charged 12v wet-cell batteries.  These batteries delivered nighttime light sufficient for reading.  Most of the text and the TB photos were downloaded from the American Wind Power Center website. 
 
The invention of the self governing windmill and its subsequent successful manufacture greatly influenced the development of the western two-thirds of the United States. Windmills from that period tell the story of ingenuity, hardship, success and failure of the early settlers as they applied a new technology to conditions in an environment with which they were barely familiar. Between 1854 and 1920, over seven hundred companies had manufactured tens of thousands of windmills. There are now only two of those companies left, one of which is in Texas.  Most windmills from that period have now been lost and those that remain are in the hands of private collectors or in sparse exhibits in general purpose museums. The passing of these windmills means that future generations can only learn about the windmill’s history through pictures.
 
The American Wind Power Center has become internationally recognized as the place to visit for observing windmills in their natural setting, photographing groups of windmills and serving as the premier educational facility where the windmill’s heritage is taught, seen and heard.  Common to those who grew up on the Plains, the windmills hold a fascination for people from outside this region. The dynamic characteristics of windmills are magnetic and the visual movement of large numbers of these water pumpers is simply indescribable.  Complementing the many windmills at the Center is a large collection of photographs, drawings and models in the Windmiller’s Art Gallery, and other very rare collections of windmill artifacts.