In Goodland's early years, settlers, many of them railroad workers, flooded in. The area lacked architects, so local carpenters built what they knew, simple four-room, 24-by-24-foot square houses with a chimney rising from the center of the roof. Goodland's Commercial Club financed these homes so that the railroaders could bring their families instead of living in rooming houses. People thought the houses resembled the coffee grinders of the time, so the houses were named "Coffee Mill Houses" and Caldwell Street where they were built became Coffee Mill Row.

 

 

 

 

Imagine a coffee grinder handle on top and the resemblance is easy to see.

 

  

 

 

 

Several of the houses still exist today, although many of them have additions that mask the original house's coffee grinder-like design.

 

Coffee Mill Row's best remaining examples are from 1602 Caldwell Street to 1401 Caldwell Street. 1526 Caldwell (left) still retains the original roof lines. Its south fence is unusual, a long piece of metal sheeting. 1534 Caldwell features Post Rocks along its boundaries.