Gehrke Windmill Garden folk art

Grand Coulee, Washington, United States

Public art

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

The Gehrke Windmill Garden in North Dam Park, Grand Coulee, Washington, displays about 120 of the roughly 700 kinetic folk-art windmills that Emil and Stella Gehrke made from scrap from about 1960. It joined the Washington Heritage Register on 7 October 2016.

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Gehrke Windmill Garden folk art

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

Approximate location · 47.965° N, 118.981° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Folk-art windmills made from bicycle wheels, hubcaps, pot lids and toy sand buckets stand inside a chain-link fence in North Dam Park, at the north end of Banks Lake.

They are what remains of a backyard gallery. Emil Gehrke, a millwright, and his wife, named Stella in the state's 2016 heritage nomination (SPACES calls her Veva), arrived in Grand Coulee in 1958 and, according to that nomination, began making windmills and whirligigs from salvaged material around 1960. They eventually made more than 700, assembling them in the basement of their home; Stella added colour with surplus paint. "Balancing is the secret," Emil said, "and you have to do them in a place where there is no wind." His stated purpose, quoted in the application, was to "show the youth of a disposable society that junk is merely a creation of the mind".

National Geographic ran a photo spread of the work in December 1975, and in 1976 the City of Seattle bought 27 windmills for a substation in the Viewland/Hoffman area. After both had died (1979 and 1980 in the nomination; SPACES gives 1980 for Emil), some pieces were sold or given away, and a group of citizens moved the rest to the park. The nomination counts about 120 pieces, typically 10 to 12 feet tall; SPACES Archives, in 2023, says over 100.

The Washington State Advisory Council on Historic Preservation listed the garden on 7 October 2016. The Coulee Area Park and Recreation District manages the park, which is federal land. In April 2026 the local newspaper The Star mentioned people adopting the windmills for restoration.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

Folk-art windmills, many 10 to 12 feet tall, stand inside a chain-link enclosure in North Dam Park. The state's 2016 heritage nomination describes a graveled parking area around the fenced garden and a locked gate; the windmills are viewed from outside the fence. Painted in primary colours.

ACCESS

North Dam Park, Grand Coulee, on State Route 155 near Spokane Boulevard by the park's picnic shelter. Public park run by the Coulee Area Park and Recreation District; the 2016 nomination describes a locked gate, so view from outside the fence.

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