When residents from the town of Holland in Michigan, Willard Wichers and Carter Brown, were looking for a way to pay homage to the city’s Dutch heritage, they began a project to purchase a windmill from Holland and bring it to the US!

However, many of the Dutch windmills had suffered serious damage during World War II resulting in the Dutch government placing a ban on the sale of windmills outside the Netherlands.

After three years of negotiation, Wichers and his group were able to gain an exemption by selecting a heavily damaged windmill named De Zwaan, the Swan, they had found in Vinkel, Holland.

In April 1965 the windmill was formally dedicated on Windmill Island, a site reclaimed from a swamp on the eastern end of Lake Macatawa in Michigan. Its reconstruction had taken some six months to complete and was overseen by a Dutch millwright, a stipulation of the purchase by the Dutch government.

Looking at the windmill, the section from where there is a white guard rail to the top is the original windmill bought from the Dutch government. It was reconstructed on top of a brick tower to ensure the blades could catch the wind as it is a working windmill producing flour and cornmeal when winds are favourable.

Behind the windmill is a field which is planted with tulips imported from Holland. However, the winter weather here in Michigan can be very harsh and some years the tulips don’t bloom giving way to what locals refer to as the stem festival!