The blacksmith, Tom Jones Sr., who worked in Hyde stone blacksmith shop built in 1883, which has been restored now, was also the blacksmith at Hyde Mill for many years following the Civil War. He also did veterinary work for area farmers. The Hyde Mill blacksmith shop could use a repair job now too.
Hyde Mill Blacksmith Shop
Near the Hyde church, mill and blacksmith shop, this barn sat on the valley floor and has an odd appearance with all the extra additions on the end of the barn which seems to go on and on. Just like this winter which is going on and on with snow drifting on the road again.
Endless Barn
A small green sign stating the word ‘Hyde’ is all that gives a slight hint of an unincorporated community located rolling hills of southern Wisconsin. In the 1898 Turner’s Hand Book and Gazetteer of Wisconsin, it lists the population of Hyde as 95 and states “is in Ridgeway township, Iowa county, 9 miles from Arena, the nearest shipping point on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Ry. Arena is reached by tri-weekly stage. It has a cheese factory, a grist mill, shoe shop, blacksmith shop, general store and a Congregation church.”
I didn’t spot the cheese factory which was built in 1891 but did see the the Hyde Store which housed a post office and was a mail and supply stop for a stage coach between Sauk City and Mineral Point. Lena Olson and Annie Johnson operated the store for half a century. Today it is a small country bar.
The old 1883 Hyde Blacksmith Shop was deteriorating and it was donated to the Hyde Blacksmith Shop Territory committee and torn down piecemeal in 2000. In 2008 stone mason Art Kirch offered to rebuild the shop for a lower sum than committee projected and the blacksmith shop was rebuilt on a new location. Each year since it was rebuilt, the blacksmith committee has held an open house to familiarize the public with this icon from the history of the valley.
Hyde Blacksmith Shop
Just down the road from the Hyde Chapel, the Hyde Mill sits on Mill Creek. The mill was built in 1850 by William Hyde who settled in the area. The mill burned in the 1870s but was rebuilt and the Ted Sawle family has owned the mill since 1931 and it has been a working mill, even generating electricity.
Ted Sawle made the water wheel for his mill as well as other water wheels for other mills, including an 18 foot wheel for a mill in Indiana that originally was built by Daniel Boone’s younger brother, Squire Boone. But now Hyde Mill is currently for sale as Ted passed away at the age of 103.
Hyde Mill
