The roots of the Challenge Company go back to 1867, when two Batavia citizens, Nelson Burr and Hugh M. Armstrong, pooled their resources to manufacture the Burr feed mill and the Nichols windmill.  Starting with only two employees, the business of the firm had grown to such a point that within two years they employed between thirty and forty workers.  In 1872, the fledgling concern suffered two disasters:  on March 10, its factory was heavily damaged by a severe fire, while in the same year the company president absconded with all its funds.  In response to these calamities, the firm was reorganized in 1872 as the Challenge Mill Company, about the time the Challenge Sectional Wheel windmill came into production.  After recovering from these difficulties, the company prospered into the 1880's, with about a hundred employees collecting weekly paychecks.  In 1882 the firm name changed to Challenge Wind Mill and Feed Mill Company, which name it retained until 1905, when it was shortened to become the Challenge Company.

Color lithographed manufactures trade literature from the 19th Century is our most important source of information on the painting of the Challenge Improved mills.  Advertising cards show them painted white with red trim on the tips of the blades and on the vane, with blue arms and vane stem, and with the name of the manufacturer stenciled in black.

Although Challenge Improved windmills were sold throughout the Great Plains states as well as east of the Mississippi, today they are exceedingly rare in the field.  Most frequently they are seen in historic photographs in libraries and archival depositories, where they often may be identified.

A contemporary of the Challenge Sectional Wheel windmill, the Challenge Double Header is one of the most impressive of all the windmills ever produced in America.  Designed for power purposes to grind grain, operate machinery, and to do a multiplicity of mechanical tasks, the Double Header employs two large wind wheels into the wind.  The amazing mill was manufactured by the Challenge Mill Company as early as 1872 and remained on the market at least as late as 1899, after which time the reference to them disappear from trade literature and advertisements.  They were made in an extraordinary range of sizes, with 12', 14', 16', 18', 22.5' 25', 30', 35', and 40' diameters  available in the early 1880's.  By the 1890's the 12' sizes was removed from the line and 45' wheel was added.

According to color lithographed trade literature, the Double Header power mills were painted much like the Challenge Sectional Wheel mills, with woodwork painted white and trimmed with red tips on the ends of the blades.  The Challenge firm was confident, even proud of the capacity and durability of its Double Header mills.  In the 1880's for example, the company made a standing offer "to set up a Double Header against any two mills of the same size of any kind, and whosoever's mill runs the steadiest, governs the best, or does the most work, shall take the three mills."  So proud was the company that it made a Double Header the centerpiece of its impressive display of windmills at the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago.  Even though Double Header mills were produced by the hundreds, distributed throughout most of the US, and marketed for a quarter of a century, they are very rare today and are seen most often in historic photographs.

The Single Header was a less expensive variation of the Double Header sectional wheel wooden power mill manufactured by the Challenge Mill Company and the Challenge Wind Mill and Feed Mill Company.  Instead of having two large wheels combined with two smaller wheels, the Single Header model had but one large wheel.  The large wheel turns in a position behind the tower, with a long wooden counterbalance arm bearing a distinctly spear shaped counterbalance weight mounted on its extreme end.  This point makes the mill look strikingly like a huge weather vane.

Advertisements for the Single Header started appearing about 1879, and it is prominent in company trade literature from the 1880's through the end of 1890, when it disappeared from such materials.  a smaller mill than the Double Header, the mill was made in a range of 13', 14', 15', 16', and 20' sizes.  Color lithographed trade literature shows the mill painted white with decorative red tips added to the blades.  Manufactured fewer years than the Double Header and seemingly not quite as popular as the more expensive twin wheeled mill.  Single Header wind mills are quite rare in the field today.  They were used most on the central Great Plains and in the mIdwest, and one is most likely to find remains of the mills in those areas, although they were sold in other regions.

Introduced into the Challenge line of windmills about 1885, the OK was the first solid wheel mill produced by the Challenge firm.  Governed through the use of a side vane mounted on a stem attached to a hollow wrought iron mast, the mill was sold widely during the last years of the 19th Century.  Substantial numbers have survived to the present day.

The Dandy in 1891 was the first steel wheel windmill manufactured by the Challenge Wind Mill and Feed Mill Company.  For over thirty years this mill was sold by the Challenge firm, and even today examples may be seen in almost all parts of the country as well in many countries abroad.  The mill is typical of the early open back geared steel windmills which began appearing on the market in the early 1890's.  As early as the late 1890's "Irrigator" style mills were produced. Produced in its regular and Irrigator patterns into the 1920's, the Dandy is by no means a common windmill, but it may be seen in almost all parts of the US and Canada.  The regular style is more frequently seen.  Often when Dandy mills are seen in the field, they are out of service because of their age, but even when wind damaged they are easily identified from their distinctive ironwork and the name Dandy stenciled in bold letters across their vanes.

First introduced to the public in 1906, the Challenge Steel was for several years the "top of the line" mill manufactured by the Challenge Company.  The Challenge Steel was prominent in the company literature for a decade after its introduction in 1906.  Although it disappears from company publications by the end of the first World War, it remains listed as available in farm directories into the mid 1920's at which time the Challenge Company began marketing its first oil bath steel mills.  Several elements aid in the identification of the Challenge Steel in the field. The mill was the only widely sold mill produced by the Challenge Company which was back geared throughout the use of an internal gear.

Even though the Challenge Steel mills remained a major product of the Challenge Company for a number of years, they are not common in the field.  They are much less frequently seen than the Dandy  steel mills, but when they are spotted they are quite easily identified by their unique combination of mechanical and design features.  Placed on the market about 1912, the Challenge Vaneless mill with spear point counterweight is the most common of the several vaneless mills produced throughout the years by the Challenge firm.  It is easily identified in the field because of its distinctive ironwork and the sharply pointed cast iron counterweight bearing its name.

The 20th Century Challenge Vaneless windmill with its spear point counterweight was sold throughout the Midwest and Great Plains for almost two decades. It appears in company literature at least into the mid 1920's.  Manufacture's literature from some years lists the trim as red and from other years lists it as green.  It is difficult to say which was more common.  For a few years from about 1924 to the end of the 1920's, a variant of the Challenge Vaneless was manufactured and known as the Challenge Self Oiling Vaneless.

Even though the Challenge Vaneless mills were made for at least a decade and a half and were used in most areas where vaneless mills were common, today they are not seen frequently.  Manufactured from 1927 until the second World War, the Challenge 27 was the last top of the line mill introduced by the Challenge Company.  It is a self oiling back geared steel pumping mill, still used by the thousands throughout the US, which was available in a full range of sizes from 6' to 22' in diameter.  The Challenge 27 proved to be one of the most successful American windmills of the 20th Century, but the road to its perfection was not a smooth one. The first attempt at replacing the old Challenge Steel mill with its internal mechanism was the development of a short lived Challenge 24 open back geared steel mill in 1924.  It was only produced for a few months.  Then the company came out with the Challenge 26 self oiling back geared steel mill.  Even though government pressure for replacement of defective merchandise was unknown at the time, in order to retain its good name, the Challenge Company replaced it at its own cost all the Challenge 26 mills.  The Challenge 27 mill was indeed a fine product.  All the problems found in the previous mills were rectified, and thousands of Challenge 27 mills were sold.  The distinctive vane sheet is one of the easiest identifying things of the 27 mill.  In addition to its shape, it also bears the only ornamentation on the mill with the words "Challenge 27 Batavia, Ill." in black with the capital letter "C" in red.

Initially in 1927 the mills were available on in 6', 8', 10', and 12' diameters.  By 1929, 14', 16', and 18' sizes were added, and in 1930, both 20' and 22' sizes were introduced. The 22' size, today rare, was the largest self oiling steel windmill mass produced in the US.  Manufacture of the Challenge 27 windmills ceased with the American entry into WWII and the conversion of the Challenge plant toward  production. After the close of the war however, a firm known as the US Challenge Company for a few years made an almost identical windmill.  This company ceased production in the early 1950's, and today the famous windmill factory serves the role of a warehouse for surplus US government property.  Challenge 27 windmills today can be seen in almost all parts of the US and in many foreign countries where windmills were used.  They are by far the most common products of the former Challenge Company, and many of them remain in service today as one of the legacies of Batavia, "The Windmill City."