The Kregel Windmill Factory

When the business closed in 1991, the Kregels' factory was kept almost exactly as it stood, and that is what the museum shows. A line shaft and leather belts still drive the machines, powered first by a single-cylinder engine and by electricity from the 1920s, while ledgers sit on the shelves, pens on the desk and an overcoat on its hook. The Eli name honored a Lutheran minister. Ella, Art Kregel's sister, kept the books and died at her desk. On the National Register since 1993, the factory became a National Historic Landmark on December 13, 2024, Nebraska's 23rd.

What the plaque says

The Kregel Windmill Factory Built in 1902, this is the last intact historical windmill factory in the United States. Cousins Louis and George Kregel began windmill pro- duction in 1879 across the street. After moving here, the company (now owned by George Kregel) produced Eli-brand windmills until 1941. Due to steel rationing at the onset of World War II, the factory became principally a retail and service center in the last decades of the company's 112- year history. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Citizens of Nebraska City Nebraska State Historical Society, 2016

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Arbor Lodge State Historical Park — 1.0 mi
  J. Sterling Morton's estate in Nebraska City, a four-room house of 1855 grown to 52 rooms among the trees he planted, home of the man who proposed Arbor Day in 1872.
• Brownville — 22 mi
  A Missouri River town of 1854 that bet on a railroad and lost, kept its arts through the decline, and now has Nebraska's oldest repertory theatre and a 1932 steam dredge on the bank.
• Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum — 33 mi
  Two hangar-sized halls beside I-80 near Ashland holding the bombers and reconnaissance planes of the command that ran America's nuclear force from Offutt, south of Omaha, from 1948 to 1992.

More markers nearby

• Russell, Majors, & Waddell House — 0.2 mi
• The First United Methodist Church of Nebraska City — 0.3 mi
• Mayhew Cabin, 1855 — 0.4 mi
• Nebraska City — 0.5 mi