Backhouse Grist Mill National Historic Site of Canada

Backhouse Grist Mill was designated a national historic site of Canada because:

• it is one of the oldest and best preserved examples remaining in Canada of the small-scale, water-powered establishments found throughout much of the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries;
• this wooden building survived two centuries of continued use and is furnished with a collection of operable equipment closely associated with the most important technological changes in 19th century milling history;
• it also reflects two stages of Canadian milling history - the early custom mill which prevailed on the settlement frontier, and the small-output, but more commercial, grist mill common in the countryside in later years; and
• the mill endures today as a reminder of early flour milling in Canada, a pursuit which later grew into one of the country's most important industries.

This rare technological and architectural survivor of early grain milling in Upper Canada was built by John Backhouse (or Backus) in the 1790s and remained operational until 1957. Typically found in frontier agricultural communities of the early 19th century, such heavy timber-framed structures used water power to mill grain. More contemporary machinery, added in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, was common in small-scale, commercial establishments in the countryside. These mills marked the beginning of what became one of Canada’s major industries.