Rother's Mills are the central granary buildings on Mill Island in Bydgoszcz, directly adjacent to the flow of the river. The mills' history is directly linked to the opening of Bydgoszcz Canal in the mid-19th-century, which linked the Brda and the Vistula Rivers and opened a waterway that flowed all the way to Berlin. This allowed for produce from the city to be ferried directly to Western Europe instead of having to be floated up to Gdańsk for export. Thus, Bydgoszcz quickly became a major centre of trade in grain and timber. Rother's Mills began construction in 1849 and was finished in 1851, with lots of fancy technological advancements including a boiler room, a steam engine room with a chimney and a pumping station/turbine house. A Berlin company, Die Königliche Seehandlung Societäts zu Berlin took over the mill in 1861 and in 1886, they upgraded to electric power.
Rother's Mill - the heart of the colourful district that is appropriately-named 'Mill Island'
Following Polish Independence, The Bydgoszcz Municipality took possession of the facility in 1919, followed by The Ministry of the Budget of Second Polish Republic in 1921. After World War II, Rother's Mills were taken over by the State Enterprises Grain and Mills (Polish: Zbożowo-Młynarskiego). From this point and until the 1980s, a water suction-tube system would connect the mill buildings to the grain barges in the canal, allowing for extraction.
Following the end of economic activity in the 1990s, plans were made to turn the mills into a hotel. The project collapsed after a few months due to financial issues and it changed hands between a few different investment companies who were also unsuccessful. In December 2013, Bydgoszcz city has acquired the property from the Nordic Development for 25 million PLN. In September 2016, Bydgoszcz city authorities signed a letter of intent with The Warsaw Museum of Technology (Polish: Muzeum Techniki i Przemysłu NOT) to host part of their collections in a renovated part of Rother's Mills buildings.
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