The Old Mill in Winter

When I posted on this burly industrial artifact last fall there were some things I did not know.

1. It appears to be not so much a milling machine as a gigantic drill press.
2. It's older than I thought.

It is by the way still sitting outside the school.  I imagine it is just waiting for the annual spring scrap metal drive before it makes one last ignomious journey.  But someone in the know told me something interesting about it.

It used to be in an old armory building that had heavy equipment in it.  It was down by the river and long enough ago that water power was still a thing.  In fact, this rugged survivor has rollers on top so that via belts it can be run by water power!  

I'm still not going to offer to buy it at scrap price and haul it home.  It's probably a century old and there's a reason why it is being tossed out.  Many reasons most likely. But if we ever encountered a Y2K, solar flare, robot apocalypse scenario and you needed something to start rebuilding your industrial base in a roots and squirrel meat based economy, boy would this come in handy.