Historic Monarch Mill-Mt. Sterling, Ky.

Built in the 1880s, the Monarch Mill building continues to be a reminder of Mt. Sterling’s rich history.

                                          Photo below from wiki media.org, taken May 2014.

An ad from an old newspaper clipping from 1884 indicates the owners of the Badger, Henry and Company also owned the roller mill that was located on Montgomery Street in Sharpsburg.

Milling around the past

During its heyday, the Monarch Mill in Mt. Sterling was the center of flourishing activity as local farmers brought their wheat, corn and other grains to be processed and sold.

Located on the corner of South Maysville and East Locust, the historic building that housed the mill still stands as a reminder of the towns rich history and is currently owned by the Montgomery County Extension Service.

The mill was constructed in the late 1880s in the Classic Revival style and was owned by Badger, Henry and Company.

C. H. Petry and William S. Lloyd owned the business in 1892 and changed the name to Monarch Milling Company where they made such products as the Monarch, Crown and Anchor flours.

Just a few years later, the mill claimed to have the largest gasoline engines in the state to operate the grinding.

In 1918 Robert Collier purchased William S. Lloyds interest in the mill according to the American Miller Magazine.

Collier lived on Richmond Avenue with his wife Mary, their children, Mary Elizabeth and Robert Jr. and in 1940 he still owned and managed the mill and his daughter was his bookkeeper.

Originally the site consisted of the flour mill with the grain elevator and storage building being added around 1916 and the hay and feed building between 1914 and 1929.

According to the National Registry of Historical Places, the flour mill was the first structure built by the milling company on the site and is a three-story, brick, flat-roofed building.

Prior to 1940 the brick walls on the south and west sides were stucco with unpainted cement.

The main block of the building has three bays separated by brick pilasters.

The entrance to the flour mill contains a double leaf door with a segmentally arched transom.

Attached to the flour mill on the south side is a one-story, two-bay building with a flat roof which was labeled "office" on the 1886 Sanborn map.

This part of the building became the engine room in 1908 after a new office was added to the Locust Street frontage.

East of the original office is a three-bay, one-story brick building which is also shown on the 1886 Sanborn map and houses the 60-horsepower coal-fired engine which ran the mill.

A wood platform which is no longer standing connected the flour mill with the office.

The first floor on the East Locust Street frontage has a projection on the east side which covers two bays of the main block of the building and has 2/2 windows capped by stone lintels. It was added between 1895 and 1901 and is labeled as the office on the1901 Sanborn map. The former office on the south side of the building became an oil room and storage.

South of the flour mill building is a metal clad building composed of a shed-roofed three-story section and two-story gable roofed section. The three-story section is labeled as grain elevator and the two-story section as warehouse on the 1890 Sanborn map.

In 1895, a metal covering was added to the north wall of the elevator and in 1914 the metal covering is shown on all the walls of the elevator/ warehouse building.

South of this building and unconnected to the mill, was a frame flour, salt, and sugar warehouse owned by the Trimble Brothers Wholesale Grocery.

The Trimble Brothers warehouse was removed by 1914.

In 1886, the property between the flour mill and the corner of Maysville and Locust was occupied by one-story frame buildings housing a cobbler, blacksmith, and wood shop.

These buildings remained on the corner until 1908 when the McDonald Brothers Coal and Feed Company built a frame complex on the corner.

The coal and feed company was gone by 1914.

The Monarch Milling Company is significant as the only extant example of the processing industries established in Mt. Sterling in the late nineteenth century.

It is an example of the historic context Industry and Transportation in Mt. Sterling, 1870-1940. Processing industries rose in importance for Mt. Sterling after the town became the railhead of the Elizabethtown, Lexington, and Big Sandy Railroad in 1872.

The complex is composed of three buildings and demonstrates how the industrial facility grew over a fifty-year period while remaining a vital local business.

The flour mill first appears on the Sanborn Insurance Maps in 1886 and the hay and feed building was in place by 1929.

The site is an example of the mill property type in the historical context Industry and Transportation in Mt. Sterling 1780-1940. It meets the property type's registration requirements because it possesses integrity of location through its relationship to the railroad. For integrity of design, the porch additions and changes to windows have not obscured the forms of the buildings and their relationship to one another.

The change in exterior fabric through the addition of pressed metal, is an historic alteration

and was made on many mills during the period.

Most of the changes to the building have occurred around the window and doorway.

Part of the transom has been filled in on the entry at the corner of South Maysville and Locust and the glazing in the doubled windows on the S. Maysville side have been replaced with multiple panes.

Although the shed roof of what was an open breezeway joining the hay and feed building to the flour mill has been in place since 1929, the brick walls enclosing it have been added since 1940.

During those rolling years of prosperity, the Monarch Milling Company was reported to have shipped about 15, 000 pounds of four per week.

A notation in the early 1900s edition of the “American Miller” magazine, reported that Crown and Monarch was the celebrated flour brands of housewives all over Central and North Eastern Kentucky.

As the Montgomery County Farmers Market gets underway near the old C.& O. train depot, and with plans for the Extension Service to utilize the Historic Monarch Mill, an area that played such an important role in the history of the town will be alive with vibrant activity just as it was all those years ago.