Amerykan Mill Complex near Krapkowice

Anyone driving the local road from Komorniki towards Kórnica sees walls rising out of the woods that look more like an aristocratic residence than farm buildings. This is Amerykan – the ruins of a 19th-century mill complex on the Osobłoga river near Pisarzowice, in the Strzeleczki district of Krapkowice County. The name is no accident: a count from Głogówek wanted to bring American modernity to Silesia, and the result became one of the region's most curious failures.

Count Edi's American dream

The investor was Count Eduard Georg Maria von Oppersdorff (1800–1889), known as "Edi", lord of the Głogówek (Oberglogau) estate, which had owned Pisarzowice since 1646. In the United States he was fascinated by mechanised mills and bakeries – the "automatic mill" system had been devised in the 18th century by Oliver Evans. The construction date is uncertain: sources give the 1830s–40s, the early 1860s or the period after 1875. Locals named the complex Amerykan after its American models (Amerikon in Silesian dialect), and the name even appeared on pre-war maps; others show it as Chmielnik (Hopfengarten).

The mechanical bakery was meant to bake bread for the workers of the count's farms instead of paying them in grain. The plan failed: the bread was poor, and after a month workers from the surrounding villages asked to be given grain again. The machines brought from across the ocean stopped after just a few weeks.

What to see

The complex consists of three buildings in the round-arch style (Rundbogenstil), with details inspired by the early Florentine Renaissance – unique in the region:

• the mill – three storeys, powered by the Osobłoga, with a back-up steam drive for times of low water,
• the granary – four storeys of masonry with a regular, almost palatial façade,
• the house with bakery and cowshed – two storeys under a hipped roof.

Look for the rusticated walls that give the buildings a fortified look, the arched windows and doors and the heavy crowning cornices. Around them lies some 50 ha of woodland between Pisarzowice and Łowkowice, with protected snowdrops and lilies of the valley.

After the counts

In 1930 Count Wilhelm von Oppersdorff sold the mill to the merchant Pius Janocha. After the war the buildings served as a weapons depot, a collection point for compulsory farm deliveries and later as a hide store for the "Otmęt" leather works in Krapkowice. Once the last residents left in the 1970s, the complex was abandoned and has been decaying ever since; today it is privately owned.

Tripto tip

The ruins can only be viewed from outside – the walls are in danger of collapse, so do not go in. The old wooden bridge by the mill collapsed in the late 1980s, and the field and forest track can be rutted and overgrown; in early spring, when the snowdrops bloom, you will need boots for mud. Allow 30–45 minutes for a walk around the complex. Combine it with Pisarzowice, home to the former Oppersdorff manor, and with the castle in Głogówek.