Bread was a very important food that pioneers ate every day.  To make bread they needed flour.

Flour is made by grinding grains of wheat, corn, rye or oats.
The pioneers could grind the grains by hand but it was a very difficult job and took a long time.

In most pioneer villages, a grist mill was built as soon as possible because it used machinery to grind the grain.

How a Grist Mill Worked

Water flowed into the buckets on the waterwheel and made it turn.  

Gears and rods connected the waterwheel to the grindstones which turned and ground the grain into flour.

The miller ran the grist mill and had to know how to grind the grain properly and fix all the machinery.