The Vollis Simpson Windmill Farm

There are no signs to guide you to the Vollis Simpson Windmill Farm. Listed as an area attraction in the Wilson, North Carolina visitor guide, the directions printed there are vague and confusing. The Street Atlas maps are outdated because all the county and state route numbers on the local roads have been given proper names after the advent of E 9-1-1 so the best way to get to the property is to ask a local, preferably an older one as the younger ones will give you a blank look when you ask about it.

Once you arrive at the Windmill Farm the first thing you notice is that the whole place appears abandoned. The whirligigs have been neglected; their paint is starting to flake and vines are creeping up to hold the moving parts in place. But several of the thirty pieces on the property still twirl in the gentle breeze passing through this day and echoes of their former glory remain.

Research Vollis on the Internet and you will find that he had no formal training in mechanics or art, that his first whirligig was a true windmill machine created to power a washing machine and that his craft evolved from there. His pieces reside in the Wilson Rose Garden, in front of the Tobacco Farm Museum in Kenley, NC, at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh and he even had four pieces commissioned for the Olympics in Atlanta. The whirligigs are intricate, amusing, ambitious and marvels of engineering when you look closely at them. Wandering around you'll notice that Vollis has incorporated people's names into his whirligigs; friends? family members? donors? There's no one there to answer your questions on this sunny fall day on a country road where no one passes. Like an abandoned amusement park, echoes of music and laughter waft on the breeze as the whirligigs silently turn and sway.

It's sad people no longer care about Mr. Simpson's whirligigs.