Did the public like wind/watermills in the past?

So I was working with a student on the perceptions of windpower in the US, specifically on the differences that have seen wind farms installed fairly widely in California vs. the Nantucket project that hit a wall, and it got me thinking...  

I wonder what people said in this area as new mills went up on Spring Creek, or a new ore washer went in 'down by the mine'.  My first guess is that in the 19th century, such developments were both 'Progress' and also not so nearly 'impactful' (if that is a word, which I am sure it is not) as we perceive them to be today. This is not to suggest that industrial sites do not impact the locales into which they are inserted, but we should be attuned to the perception of impacts (I don't want to see them form my window) vs. the material impacts (My well water is full of methane).

My thinking of this is largely conditioned by Nye on America as Second Creation, as well as Hughes on the Human-Built World (esp. ch. 2), though at the same time, there is a 19th-century legal case where a company that put in an ore-washer agreed ahead of time to pipe fresh water to a farmer's cattle should their wash water taint his stream (it did, they didn't, and the farmer won damages), so clearly the industries knew that they would be impacting the local environment.

My thoughts were initially also captured by this article: "Understanding public responses to offshore wind power" (from  ).  Clearly much more to think about.

When the Teletubbies get a wind farm...