Only Working Danish Windmill In America
Elk Horn, Iowa
Elk Horn and its nearby northern neighbor town of Kimballton comprise the largest rural Danish settlement in the U.S. Kimballton has a replica of the Little Mermaid statue, while Elk Horn hosts a tiny church and this windmill, 60 feet tall.
Built in 1848, the windmill was bought and shipped here for the 1976 US Bicentennial. Elk Horn couldn't afford to pay anyone to reassemble it, so the townspeople did it themselves -- and they restored the windmill to working condition while they were at it. Unfortunately, the task couldn't be completed until three months after the Bicentennial, in March 1977.
The folks in Elk Horn claim that those who knew of the windmill in Denmark also knew that it was falling apart, and that they were grateful that the Americans came to rescue and restore it. Denmark, which originally told Elk Horn that there were no Danish windmills for sale, was mad. It subsequently passed a law forbidding the exporting of any more of its windmills, so this is the only Danish one in America.
But then there are all of those Dutch windmills....