New exhibit celebrates Winooski’s mill heritage

View from the window of the Heritage Winooski Mill Museum. Photo by Natalie Charron.

Visitors to the Heritage Winooski Mill Museum can now enjoy detailed drawings of a fictional mill town similar to Winooski.     

These drawings were created by Caldecott award-winning illustrator David Macaulay, whose original sketches are on display at the museum.  They contributed to Macaulay’s process for writing his children’s book, “Mill.” Macaulay’s work is displayed now through April 2. 

In addition to being an award-winning illustrator, Macaulay is an internationally-known author whose work has been translated into several languages.

According to the Heritage Winooski Mill Museum website, “Mill” was inspired by the buildings surrounding Macaulay’s home in Rhode Island.  Macaulay developed this story by spending over a year conducting research at the Slater Mill and other locations in New England.

“The book tells more about the history of New England, not specifically Winooski,” said the museum’s executive director Miriam Block.  “But you can learn a lot and there’s a lot of similarities between this fictional mill town and what happened in Winooski.”

Block thinks that “Mill” is an accurate representation of New England mill towns.

“David did a lot of research, he went to the Slater Mill, he worked with historical societies to learn about the overall history,” Block said.

Although “Mill” isn’t specifically based on Winooski, Block says that visitors forget this fact when touring the museum. 

“It’s so interesting when people come to visit, I might remind them that it’s a fictional town, and then they’ll forget,” Block said. “They’ll be looking at a map and say ‘oh, where is that in Winooski?’”

Sketch of the wrought iron “H.” Photo by Natalie Charron.

 Block says that there are similarities between Macaulay’s mill town and Winooski.  For example, Macaulay sketched a wrought iron “H” that resembles the “C” outside of the museum.

“David never came to Winooski when he was creating this book, but that is a general design that exists in so many mills, that you can see the similarities here,” Block said.

Block says that the exhibit has been viewed by visitors from Winooski and other areas. 

“It’s a mixture of people who have been coming to this specific exhibit.  We do have a lot of people who are coming because of their connection, either living in Winooski or they have some sort of connection, they find out that we’re open and they may or may not necessarily be interested in David Macaulay, but they’re excited to be able to come to the museum to have something to do, especially during the pandemic,” Block said.

While some visitors have heard of the museum but not Macaulay, sometimes the opposite is true.

“And we also have people who have never heard of the museum before and are big David Macaulay fans, who are coming because they’re excited to see the exhibit for him,” Block said.

Essex resident Agatha Lapointe,Williston resident Marsha Drake and South Hero resident Mary Kim Lavery all visited the museum.  Although the three Vermont residents haven’t read “Mill,” they did enjoy the exhibit.

 “I think it’s a great bit of history,” Drake said.

Tickets for the David Macaulay exhibit can be reserved on the Heritage Winooski Mill Museum website.