This mill was built at best knowledge in 1890 in Las Trampas, New Mexico, Taos County on the Rio De Las Trampas. The Las Trampas tract was part of the original Las Trampas Grant.

The wooden wheel under the mill, driven by the force of the water delivered thru the canova, powered the shaft that turned the buhr stones on the upper end of the shaft inside the mill.

A 1910 postcard of the Taos Flour Mill, Taos, New Mexico.

The canova(hollowed out log or trough) delivers the water to the mill. The mill, typical of the many mills built throughout Northern New Mexico from the 1600's to the 1940's, utilized a simple process of a set of two millstones horizontally situated immediately above a wooden water wheel located beneath the floor of the mill. This wheel on a vertical shaft is often called a tub wheel

In 1989, the mill was brought back from the Smithsonian and is now on loan from the owner to the Historic Mora Valley Foundation and resides on the Cassidy/Cleveland Roller Mill(NM-30-01) location in Mora County, New Mexico. The diagram displayed at the mill shows the working of an early turbine-tub type mill.

The name Cruz goes back to the 1690 Pueblo rebellion. In 1973 the mill was owned by Maximillano Cruz in Las Trampas. It was moved to the Smithsonian Museum, in Washington, D.C., where it was seen by about 30 million people from 1974-1989. Interior of the mill.