Wolcott Mill

Wolcott Mill was likely built in the 1845-47 period by the Arad Freeman family and was operated as a grist and flour mill until 1967. Frederick B. Wolcott, who took over the mill in 1878, converted it from waterwheel to turbine-driven and greatly renovated the building and expanded the operation. The Wolcott family owned and operated the mill from 1878 to 1967. The mill is one of few nineteenth-century grist and flour mills in Michigan that survives with not only the structure but also its milling equipment intact. The mill with its still operational equipment reflects the evolution of milling technology in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Wolcott Mill is set in Ray Township, a rural area of Macomb County. The property is a complex, comprised of the grist mill itself, a gable-roof wooden Greek Revival structure, and gable-roof wooden storage and fertilizer barns, part of the former millrace, and a small pond known as the mill pond that is a historic feature of the site but served no functional purpose. The mill stands at the base of a short, steep rise, with the historic barns on or just atop the rise. The grist mill is Greek Revival in style, with three levels on a basement, and retains its original milling equipment in operational condition.