Ye Old Mill -- Boats in the Off-Season

One of the oldest still-running attractions at the Minnesota State Fair is Ye Old Mill. Shown during the Fair here in a photo by Ben Franske from the Wikimedia Commons, the Mill gives you a ride through dark tunnels in a red, flat-bottomed boat for $2.50.


It's generally pretty dark while you're in there, but if you turn on the lights, this photo from Flickr by Dan Hatfield and Rosie McNamee shows what it would look like. I gather that it's traditionally a place where teenagers make out, and little kids get scared by the gloom.


It's been in business since 1913, and has been operated by the same family the whole time.


They've been building and rebuilding the boats for 96 years.


Right now, a little less than two months before the Fair opens, this is what Ye Old Mill looks like. Those are the boats, stacked on their sides along the shuttered storefront.


Seeing the boats there, I couldn't resist stopping to look at them, and I noticed how they're all labeled with names and years. I'm not sure what the years mean -- is it when the boat was rebuilt, or painted, or what?


Then I noticed this one named for Clint and Donna.

Looking closer, I mused about how the name CLINT (kind of like the word FLICK) should never be written or typeset in all capital letters, especially in sans serif type!


Someone else obviously must have agreed with me, because they painted over part of the L to make it a little harder to read the LI as a U.