(Listen on your favorite podcast player: iTunes, Spotify, Overcast, HeartRadio, Amazon Music)In the fall of 1919 Thomas Loughlin was tired and worried. In all his years of selling cider in New Jersey - first in Newark, now here in Mendham - it had never been harder to turn a profit. Twenty years ago, business had been booming. The year 1904 in particular had produced a bumper crop of the best apples New Jersey had ever seen. Not so great for the farmers who had to sell their apple crops at record low prices - but great for cider manufacturers like Loughlin. From the pomace of those superior New Jersey apples, Loughlin was able to bottle and distribute quality hard cider and applejack - the American name for apple brandy. 1904 was also the year Loughlin got an opportunity to expand his business, eventually moving his cider press from its original location in the center of town, into the old Nesbitt grain mill three miles west on Mendham Road. It had been a calculated risk to convert a grain mill into a cider mill, but it had paid off for over a decade. But then there was the 18th Amendment, which had been ratified earlier that year, in January of 1919, making the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol illegal. Prohibition would soon be in effect. But as Thomas Loughlin reflected on the events that brought his business to its knees, he undoubtedly wondered what the future looked like for his mill in Mendham. What would happen to this building that he had painstakingly converted, maintained and operated? Would it even make it past the next decade, or would the wheels of his cider mill stop spinning for good?–(Theme)Welcome to Hometown History…A series about the iconic places and events that make a town someplace people call home - stories that people can tell to their friends old and new about the place they live, did live, or will live: In my case, Mendham, New Jersey. And today, today we talk about how one of the icons in that town - a cider mill - evolved with the times, through legislation meant to dry up all the fun. –Fall harvest is a very special season for Mendham. It’s like this area’s superbowl. Porches explode with pumpkins, leaves on the trees of Jockey Hollow sparkle golden in the sunlight, and tourists flock from all over for apples. (Apple crunch) You can pick them, bob for them, eat them candied or caramelized - but in this town, you can also press them. Every year in early October, the Ralston Cider Mill, in Mendham Township, holds a pressing event (one might even call it a “press conference”).Located on the south side of Rt 24 between Mendham and Chester, the Ralston Cider Mill stands like a large but unassuming sentinel. Its worn wooden stairs and slightly ill-fitting door suggest that this place is original to the era in which it was built.JAMES: So, underneath this wooden piece, you see there's a big vertical rod there that's called the main shaft that went from a turbine…James Malchow, the director of the Ralston Cider Mill Museum in Mendham, gave my producer Katie and me a tour of the inside of the cider mill earlier this spring.Now, the first thing you have to know is this place didn’t always used to be a cider mill. Instead of crushing apples, this mill once used water power to crush grain.In 1848 John Ralston Nesbitt, grandson of the first Ralston to settle here, borrowed money from his mother to build a house and a grain mill on this site. And I say that because nearly every history book mentions this strange fact. Poor guy will forever be known for borrowing money from his mom.But, hey, it was a good investment! Because this 175 year old mill has withstood a retrofit, two gruesome deaths, prohibition, two World Wars, and a family of racoons. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. JAMES: In any case, when you start up the equipment, which I can do, if you like…James has me reach down, and turn a wheel 180 degrees, which starts the apple pressing process. The various belts and wheels, once powered by water from nearby Burnett Brook, kick into gear. Today, everything works using electrical power. As we walk around the mill, James points out the belts and wheels turning slowly but surely to move a giant apple press down.JAMES: The apples come into the building from outside on that conveyor, which is controlled off this shaft. The grater that turns the apples from whole fruit into a mush called pomace is controlled off here. And then when the apples and that pomace are made, they come in down from one floor to the other. Now they are under just the power of gravity…I didn’t realize it until I was doing research for this episode, but New Jersey is, historically, one of the biggest apple producers in the U.S. Sorry New York! I’m just the messenger. (Music - Vivaldi) Apples are as American as apple pie, even if they are from Kazakhstan. But they made their way to North America and were planted in soils across the eastern seaboard, ...
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