• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About Us
  • Videos
    • Featured Video
    • Foodie Friday
    • Monthly ReCap
  • Online E-Editions
    • This Week’s E-Editions
    • 2023
    • 2022
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017
    • 2016
    • 2015
    • 2014
  • Social Media
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
  • Advertising
  • Local Jobs
  • Puzzles & Games
  • Circulation Request

The Laker/Lutz News

Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964

       

Click to join our weekly e-newsletter

  • Home
  • News
    • Land O’ Lakes
    • Lutz
    • Wesley Chapel/New Tampa
    • Zephyrhills/East Pasco
    • Business Digest
    • Senior Parks
    • Nature Notes
    • Featured Stories
    • Photos of the Week
    • Reasons To Smile
  • Sports
    • Land O’ Lakes
    • Lutz
    • Wesley Chapel/New Tampa
    • Zephyrhills and East Pasco
    • Check This Out
  • Education
  • Pets/Wildlife
  • Health
    • Health Events
    • Health News
  • What’s Happening
  • Sponsored Content
    • Closer Look
  • Homes
  • Obits
  • Public Notices
    • Browse Notices
    • Place Notices

Making a clean sweep

July 26, 2022 By B.C. Manion

Step into Steve Melton’s workshop, in the far reaches of Northeast Pasco County, and you’ll see a man who equally enjoys working with his hands, and spinning stories about the heritage arts.

In this case, he’s busy making a broom.

Steve Melton holds up two types of millet, also known as broom straw or broom corn, that are used to make brooms. (Christine Holtzman)

He starts with the material that will make the broom’s head.

“This is the millet seed and they would pull the seed off,” he said, touching the seeds with his fingers. What it does, after the seed is off, it turns into broom corn; or broom straw,” he said.

There are all types of millets. There’s one for syrup-making. Another for cow feed. Some millet is specially bred for broom straw, he said.

Millet, historically was grown in Illinois.

There are various accounts to the history of broom-making by hand, but Melton said the industry had its heyday during the ‘30s and ‘40s, when towns were founded on making brooms and workers assembled them by hand, in factories.

After attaching the millet to the broom handle, Steve Melton places his nearly finished broom in a broom vise to hold it flat in place, while he stitches the head. Melton is using a sewing needle that he made in his blacksmith shop.

“It was a huge industry at one time,” he said.

“Illinois was kind of the epicenter.

“In Rantoul, Illinois — that’s where I learned about this — there are broom festivals,” Melton said.

Not many brooms are made by hand, these days
Melton said he became enamored with the idea of making brooms after he saw some being made at an antique tractor show in the Midwest.

“I was enthralled,” he said.

While demonstrating how he makes a flat kitchen broom, Steve Melton, uses a machine called a ‘kick winder’ to attach the millet to the wooden handle. Melton uses his foot to control the spin of the machine, while hand-wrapping the millet to the handle, using metal wire.

At another show, he saw brooms being made on a commercial scale. Then, he learned about a man in Alabama who sold machines used to make brooms by hand, and he decided to buy some of that equipment and bring it home.

The Northeast Pasco man doesn’t make mass quantities of brooms, but he gets immense pleasure from the process.

He uses broom straw of varied colors.

Though the dyed broom straw is more expensive, Melton likes to mix some in.

“It just looks so pretty,” he explained.

When making brooms, he uses a kick winder, which wraps wire around the broom straw to attach it to the handle. His particular piece of equipment was patented in 1878 and likely has been used to make thousands of brooms in the past, he said.

Melton uses short, medium and long broom corn to create the broom head.

The process involves selecting the broom corn, evening it out and then attaching the batch of straw to the handle with wire, using the kick winder.

A look at some of Steve Melton’s handmade brooms.

He uses a broom vise to flatten the straw for the broom head and once it is flattened, he keeps it that way, by using a needle he made in his blacksmith shop, to stitch the straw together by hand.

While making brooms, Melton said his mind drifts.

He thinks of the others who came before him, using the same piece of machinery to make brooms by hand.

He imagines the lives of the people using the same kind of brooms, decades ago.

“This is broom-making as it would have been, 100 years ago,” Melton said.

He derives great satisfaction from the art of making brooms by hand, and he loves the practical nature of the finished product.

“Every time you pick this up to sweep your kitchen, that gives you a sense of accomplishment,” Melton said.

Revised July 27, 2022

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Reddit
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Search

Sponsored Content

Get the Word Out: Orange Blossom Women’s Group is a Safe Haven for Women to Address All Their Healthcare Needs

November 7, 2023 By Special to The Laker/Lutz News

Orange Blossom Women’s Group, a state-of-the-art medical facility led by Dr. Reut Bardach, M.D. that offers … [Read More...] about Get the Word Out: Orange Blossom Women’s Group is a Safe Haven for Women to Address All Their Healthcare Needs

Tampa Bay Roofing Services Offers Quality, Experience and Honesty

October 24, 2023 By Special to The Laker/Lutz News

Our community is home to Tampa Bay Roofing Services led by Chris Hloska, a roofing industry veteran with over 20 years … [Read More...] about Tampa Bay Roofing Services Offers Quality, Experience and Honesty

More Posts from this Category

What’s Happening

11/29/2023 – Falling Letter Collage

The Starkey Ranch Theatre Library Cultural Center, 12118 Lake Blanche Drive in Odessa, will host a DIY class for adults on Nov. 29 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Participants can create their own “falling letter” collage with magazine cutouts. All supplies will be provided. Registration is required. Call 727-815-7126. … [Read More...] about 11/29/2023 – Falling Letter Collage

11/30/2023 – Agricultural Tour

UF/IFAS Hillsborough County Extension will host a Hillsborough County Agricultural Tour on Nov. 30. The tour will start at UF’s Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (GCREC) in Wimauma with breakfast, continue on a coach bus to Speedling Inc., then on to UF’s Tropical Fish Research Center in Sun City, an agritourism stop and lunch break at the Southern Barn at Lonesome G Ranch, a visit to Astin Farms (strawberry) Field, and a return to GCREC. For more information or to register, visit tiny.cc/hillsagtour, or call 813-744-5519. … [Read More...] about 11/30/2023 – Agricultural Tour

11/30/2023 – Big Band Extravaganza

The New Tampa Performing Arts Center, 8550 Hunters Village Road in Tampa, will present a Holiday Big Band Extravaganza with the Florida Jazz Express on Nov. 30 at 7:30 p.m. The band will perform modern and classic arrangements of holiday favorites. There also will be a full bar. Tickets are $15 for a table seat and $13 for a theater seat. To purchase tickets, visit NewTampaArtsCenter.org/Tickets. … [Read More...] about 11/30/2023 – Big Band Extravaganza

11/30/2023 – Christmas Tree Lighting

St. Leo and Saint Leo University will host the school’s annual Tree Lighting and Christmas Village on Nov. 30 starting at 5:30 p.m., next to the Student Activities Building, 33701 County Road 52 in St. Leo. There will be a brief welcome by Ed Dadez, Saint Leo president, and Vincent D’Ambrosio, St. Leo mayor; a prayer by Father Lucius Amarillis; a reading of the nativity story; lighting of the campus trees; and a carol sing-a-long. There also will be photos with Santa and Mrs. Claus, snacks, crafts for children, and a Christmas Village featuring gifts for sale, and more. Requests for special accommodations can be made by emailing . For information, call 352-588-8992. … [Read More...] about 11/30/2023 – Christmas Tree Lighting

11/30/2023 – Cork ornament

The Starkey Ranch Theatre Library Cultural Center, 12118 Lake Blanche Drive in Odessa, will host this DIY class for adults: Nov. 30 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Participants can make a cork snowman ornament. All supplies will be provided. Registration is required. For information, call 727-815-7126. … [Read More...] about 11/30/2023 – Cork ornament

11/30/2023 – Gingerbread House Party

The Salvation Army of Clearwater will host its fourth annual Home Sweet Home Gingerbread House Decorating Party on Nov. 30 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., at The Belleview Inn, 25 Belleview Blvd., in Belleair. The event is to raise awareness, provide resources, and empower citizens to break the cycle of generational poverty. In addition to decorating gingerbread houses, there also will be DJ entertainment, awards, lunch, beverages and pop-up boutiques. Funds raised will help single mothers and their children break generational poverty by supporting the Hope Crest Home, a homeless prevention program. Registration opens at 9:30 a.m. For information and sponsorships, call Wendy Cassidy at 727-725-9777, ext. 105. … [Read More...] about 11/30/2023 – Gingerbread House Party

More of What's Happening

Archives

 

 

Where to pick up The Laker and Lutz News

Copyright © 2023 Community News Publications Inc.

   
%d bloggers like this: