A miller is a person who operates a mill, a building where grain like wheat, corn, or rye gets ground into flour. For thousands of years, millers played a crucial role in many communities because people needed flour to bake bread, an important food.

Traditional mills used enormous circular stones to crush grain. The stones, called millstones, could weigh hundreds or even thousands of pounds. The top stone rotated over a stationary bottom stone. The miller's skill helped determine the quality of the flour: grinding too coarsely left chunky bits, while grinding too finely could burn the grain. Water wheels or windmills provided the power to turn these heavy stones, and the miller controlled the speed and pressure.

Millers often lived right at their mills, which were built beside rivers or on hilltops where the wind blew strongest. In medieval times, the miller was one of the most important people in a village, since everyone depended on them for their daily bread. The job required knowledge of mechanics, grain quality, and timing.

Today, most flour comes from enormous industrial mills, but you can still visit historic mills that show how millers worked, and some small-scale millers still grind grain using traditional stone methods to produce specialty flours.