Syrup

Mill

This Columbus No 13 Syrup Mill was made by (or possibly for sale by) The O’Neill and McNamara Co.
of Vicksburg, Mississippi. A. B. McGowan Sr., moved from Smith Co., Mississippi to West Carroll Par-
ish, Louisiana in 1923. He stopped in Vicksburg and traded one of his mules for this mill. The mill
was donated by Harold Russell, Mr. McGowan's Grandson, to the Dave Pearce Memorial Foundation.

 

Raw sugar cane or sorghum, after having been burned or stripped to remove the leaves, was fed
between the rollers, two stalks at a time, while a mule marched around the mill to provide the power.
The power source at the last use of this mill was named "Jetty".

 

Not all families had a syrup mill. They would take their cane to be processed by the mill owner; usual-
ly for a percentage, often 1/5th. Juice dripped from the spout into a galvanized barrel sitting on a
ground slide. The slide was then pulled to the location of the cooking pans where the day long process
of reducing it to syrup was carried out.

 

The waste material of crushed stalks, called bagasse, was often fed to livestock in rural areas, but was
also made into a pressed board originally called celotex, used to line ceilings and walls. Panels of this
material may be seen in our Gallery house. The most elaborate examples of its use are probably the
ceilings of the House and Senate chambers of the Louisiana State Capital Building.

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