Laucke Mills History

Laucke Mills was established in 1899 by Friedrich Laucke at Greenock in South Australia’s famous Barossa Valley.

Friedrich Laucke came from Germany where his father had a watermill for turning furniture and attachments for milling flour. He had served in the German navy and was inspired by the adventure of, as he put it "seeing the furthest ends of the earth" He sailed from Bremen, Germany in 1895 and obtained a job as a miller at Edwin Davey & Sons flour mill in Salisbury, South Australia and later at Davey's Angaston mill.

He remained in their employ until rheumatic fever left him somewhat incapacitated and perhaps reflective of his prospects and future. He decided to leave employment with Edwin Davey and Sons. and in a most amicable parting advised he would "seek work how and when he could on his own account".

Laucke had the support of local farmers to buy the Greenock mill but the bank was sceptical given the partnership had scant assets and the mill had already cost the bank many thousands of pounds.

Apart from that, the Greenock mill had already been insolvent twice before and had blown up in boiler explosions more than once. The best that could be done was to let the mill work but without the banks help. Freidrich Laucke would buy wheat on his own account and prove his ability to mill good flour from what surely seemed a cursed site.

The Greenock mill defied critics and prospered but in 1905 disaster struck in the form of another boiler explosion. Raethal and Laucke were both in the mill at the time of the explosion. While being thrown high into the air Raethal remembers seeing the township of Greenock and thinking how shiny some of the roofs looked in the sun and then awoke amongst the rubble. Apart from the wreckage of the power plant there was extensive damage to the mill itself. Freidrich Raethal soon felt the pain of a leg that was smashed in the explosion and there was no prospect for a complete recovery. Raethal declared he was finished with Greenock and finished with milling.