City Mills

Correcting the Build Date of Mansfield’s City Mills

The engravings on an 1890 sales receipt and a woodcut illustration from an 1882 article about the company, are the best way to illustrate the correct build date of the brick landmark in Mansfield, Ohio known as the City Mills.

The original City Mills was a frame structure built in 1847, as shown in the cut on the right in the bill-head. The existing brick building, the Roller Mills, was built on the adjacent lot in 1881, as shown in the cut on the left. At the date of 1890 as indicated on the receipt, and the earlier newspaper cut, the two buildings coexisted, side by side. The surviving Roller Mills building in later years has taken on the more familiar City Mills name.

The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which has the correct build date, but other sources have stuck on the 1847 date, confusing it with the original City Mills. An article in the Mansfield Herald that lists the numerous buildings and homes going up in 1881, includes the Gilbert, Waugh & Co. structure at a cost of $35,000.