Students · October 11, 2024
Millrace Week Foundry Pour Turns the Old Sluice Gate Into 360 Trout Trivets
About 900 pounds of cast iron pulled out during fish-passage construction went into the cupola Thursday night in front of a crowd of roughly 420.
When crews cleared the Millrace outlet this summer to build the new fish passage, they pulled out the cast-iron frame and wheel of a sluice gate that had controlled water to the old mill since around 1890. It weighed about 900 pounds. On Thursday night it went into the cupola furnace in the Founders Hall high bay. It came out as 360 trivets shaped like a brook trout, each stamped “MILLRACE 2024” on the back.
The Thursday pour has been part of Millrace Week every year since 1958. It is the large, loud, public half of a tradition that starts with the small pewter pour new students do at First Forge during orientation. About 420 people watched from behind the yellow rail. Another few hundred watched the live feed on the quad screen.
“That gate held back the Millrace for a hundred and thirty years. We figured it had earned a quieter job. Now it can sit on somebody’s kitchen table under a pot of chili.”
— Gordon Haugstad, foundry lab manager, Department of Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering
Students in the metalcasting course packed the sand molds over four weeks in September. Two of the 360 castings cracked in cooling and will be melted again next year. The rest will go on sale at the campus store for $25. Half of the money goes to the Porter River Riverkeepers, who paid part of the fish passage’s cost, and half goes to the student emergency fund.
The same pour cast the three medallions for this year’s Distinguished Alumni Awards, which go to their recipients at Friday’s alumni dinner.
The rest of Millrace Week:
- Friday: Ring of Iron for seniors at dusk around the 1912 cornerstone, followed by the alumni dinner in the Founders Union ballroom.
- Saturday: the alumni 5K from Millwright Stadium at 8 a.m. (about 540 runners are registered), the homecoming parade on Founders Drive at 10:30 a.m., the Forge Bowl against Chippewa Valley State at 1 p.m. and fireworks over the quad at 7:30 p.m.
The pour is run by students and faculty of the Department of Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering. More on the week’s customs is on the traditions page.
Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. The sluice gate, the pour, the trout-shaped trivets and the foundry staff are invented; nothing was cast and nothing is for sale.