Kroondal, Rustenburg

Kroondal, situated on a farm, was one of 22 German Lutheran mission congregations established in the former Natal and Transvaal. The farm Kroondal, which was in existence since 1843, was registered in 1858 in the name of Jan Michiel van Helsdingen. A mission was established here, but when the society could no longer afford to provide maintenance for anyone but the missionaries, the lay workers who had worked at the station settled as independent farmers nearby. The settlement was surveyed and divided into plots in 1889 and a school which acquired a reputation for excellence was founded. Among those of the pupils who were not German-speaking were Louis Botha, who was to become South Africa’s first Prime Minister, and the Afrikaans poet Totius, J D du Toit. The largely German-speaking town has a distinctly Teutonic architecture and cultural atmosphere. 

In 1880, a German by the name of Georg Wilhelm Ottermann arrived in Kroondal, seeking a healthier climate. He began to farm wheat, maize and tobacco and in 1889 built a mill on his land. He gave his mill the edge over his competitors in the area by commissioning a Rustenburg carpenter and fellow mill-owner, Mr W Glatthaar, to construct a sifting system of conveyors, reels and elevators, which meant his was the only mill in the area that offered sifted meal. In 1896 the mill was relocated to a position by the Sandspruit, where the water of the Modderspruit could be used to power a wide over-shot wheel, and the steam engine whose services were employed in the original mill were only required when the river was too low to power the wheel. Sadly, the Boer war interrupted this steady, prosperous progress and Georg Ottermann and his entire family found themselves living in the squalor of the Irene concentration camp. The British soldiers, meanwhile, removed bearings from the mill so that the Boer farmers could not be supplied with meal, and then, just to be quite sure, razed the building to the ground.

In June 1902, Ottermann and his family returned to their ruined farm, and moved undamaged portions of the mill to a miraculously intact barn while they rebuilt their homestead. In 1903, their new mill took shape and prospered once more. Expansion of agriculture in the area resulted in a further relocation of the mill, to its present site on the Rustenburg-Pretoria road. Georg’s sons began to assist their father in the mill, and in 1928 bought it from their father, forming their partnership, H & B Ottermann. Along with technology, the family flourished, and sons followed fathers into the business. By 1960, the Ottermann family owned the Rustenburg Produce and Milling Company, as well as the Kroondal mill. Georg’s son Bernard retired in 1988, after 70 years in the milling industry. Since all milling operations were moved to Rustenburg in 1994 the Kroondal Mill has slipped gracefully into retirement. The mill has been restored to what it would have looked like prior to its modernisation, and is now a restaurant where one can sip coffee in the company of the original milling equipment.