De Noord was used as a malt mill until the nineteenth century, when it switched to grinding grain for animal feed.

The mill was one of the only buildings to survive the German bombing of Rotterdam in World War II and during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, it became a symbol of Dutch resistance.

[2] De Noord suffered in a fire over the night of 27-28 July 1954 and, despite being well-insured, was demolished soon after due to the extent of the damage and because the mill would get in the way of traffic.

[1][3] Frans Blok, a Rotterdam designer, launched a new campaign to rebuild De Noord as part of a redesign of the Oostplein in 2020.

According to Blok, it would improve the Oostplein by giving it more green space and would be comparable to mills that had been rebuilt elsewhere in the Netherlands, such as the Molen De Kameel in Schiedam.