American historian Walter P. Webb said it wasn’t the gun which won the West, it was the windmill. A sign of this quote also welcomes visitors to Canada’s only museum that exhibits these structures which were crucial to the development of our great country.
The museum is located in the village of Etzicom Alberta, population 29, and has 20 windmills. This unique museum in Canada owes its existence to Leonard Mitzel’s love of history. He sold his farm in 1988 and moved into the village. He bought the only school in the area which had closed down and proceeded to turn it into a museum dedicated to windmills.
He quietly went about locating windmills which had become obsolete around the country. He brought them back to Etzikom and rebuilt them according to the original model. He even managed to convince the Alberta premier to write to late Senator Ted Kennedy for permission to cross the U.S. border and retrieve a mill he found at Martha’s Vineyard.
We should mention that Leonard Mitzel is also the provincial parliament member for Cypress/Medicine Hat.
Besides its collection of antique windmills, the Windpower Centre also has "reproductions of a general store, hotel/rooming house, schoolhouse, blacksmith shop, barber shop and bath, post office, and an early 1900s home complete with parlour, bedroom, and kitchen."
The Canadian National Historic Windpower Centre is open from mid-May to early September. These are more than 5,000 visitors who visit each year.