In pioneer times, a working mill was important to a town's survival, and in 1856 a winter blizzard that killed two Spillville teenagers, believed to be Carl Bouska and Joseph Novak, after they had gone to Waucoma for flour became the catalyst for building one in Spillville. In the 1860s, Spillville was a small community of nine or ten families with a hotel, brewery, blacksmith, wagonmaker, tinsmith, and carpenter. In 1865, J.J. Linhart and Ignatz Benda transferred land to Hannah Morse, S.W. Salls, and Christopher Collier, who intended to build a mill on the Turkey River at the north end of town, and at least six other individuals helped operate it during its first decade. The Big Stone Mills opened in 1867 with a capacity of 300 bushels of grain a day. During the 12-month period ending June 1870, it processed 59,000 bushels of grain and produced 6,000 barrels of flour and 225 tons of livestock feed. Big Stones Flour became Spillville's primary export, was in great demand in Chicago, and sold for $4.00 per barrel while competing well against better known brands. The mill was powered by a 48" Leffel hydraulic turbine driven by a spar dam on the Turkey River, and in the 20th century a gas engine and later a diesel engine supplemented the water wheel. After 1880, the Bernatz family owned and operated the mill for seven decades. Charles Ira bought it in 1951 and converted it from water and diesel power to electric power during the 1950s, by which time it produced only animal feed rather than flour. In the 1980s, the Lynch family continued operations until a modern mill was built northwest of the site. Long valued as both an industrial center and an attractive landmark, it was eventually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Cyril Klimesh, a Spillville native and author of They Came to This Place - A History of Spillville, Iowa, and Its Czech Settlers, bought the mill site hoping it could be restored and preserved, but after Turkey River flooding in 2008 washed silt onto the second floor, the damage proved too great, and Big Stone Mills was demolished in the fall of 2011.