Mock Mills, Restoration Perversion.



Mock mills are found in the world of the fantasy, and in theme amusement parks. They can take the form of wind and water mills. They are silly mills which are created out of the imagination world of cartoon imagery. Mock mills are buildings shaped some-what like traditional mills, but could never be put to traditional use or grinding. They are constructed to look like real mills without any technical engineering background, but could never capable of using wind or water as a power source. These mills are found in amusement parks, as restaurants, as a center piece in shopping malls, and development communities, etc.  In some cases actual millwrights have been employed to make them look like real working mills. Their appearance ranges from authentic to cartoonish. They often have the appearance of being constructed as part of the movie set found in the town of Sweet Haven in the Popeye 1980 movie which afterwards has become a tourist destination. Mock mills may have a ramshackle appearance showing signs of being poorly constructed, or fake weathering with lack of proper maintenance were if they actually could perform their actual intended use they would shake themselves apart.

A mockery mill is insult to historical accuracy. It ridicules history and historical fact, and is contemptuous of our knowledge and understanding. It is false and impudent to the imitation.  It is a parody of what is real and a farce and travesty of correct construction and engineering. Putting blue dye in the the mill race or sluice box so it looks like the water is reflecting more of the sky is burlesque and a caricature. Also you end up with mockery interpretation where you are told that a water turbine is actually an operating tub wheel, and people talking in old-timey mannerisms. This is worse than a "bad" Disney movie. Mock interpretation standard speak would say that the millstones "mash" up the grain into flour or meal. This is definitely not the case! The millstones never tough each other (contrary to what mockery interpretation would tell you), but the furrows cut the grain repeatedly like a pair of scissors cutting paper into smaller and smaller bits. Mockery interpretation includes obvious fake accents, speaking for the sake of entertainment, and being over friendly and familiar with visitors to the point of celebrating personal events such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc.


A prime example of a mock mill is the mill from the short lived television series "Apple's Way." The CBS dramedy aired from 1974-1975. It was about a father who relocated his family to the (fictitious) hometown of Appleton, Iowa. Part of their home was a water powered mill, and in several scenes Grandfather Aldon played by the veteran character actor Malcolm Atterbury operating the mill as if it was an actual water powered grist mill. The mill on "Apple's Way" is obesely inspired by the Glen Mills Jewel Mill in Rowley, Massesuhetts. The Jewel Mill was once known as Pearson Mill, and was the first fulling mill built in America in 1643. In 1820 wool carding factory was added by Nathaniel Dummer, who also manufactured snuff. A grist mill was added in 1856, and burned in 1914. Then in 1942 Paul W. Parker, an engineer built the present mill on the original site. The mill was powered by a water turbine and a 12 foot diameter Fitz Overshot Water Wheel. There was a long standing belief that the ideal mill site would be able to operate a water turbine and an overshot water wheel. I am not sure where this notion started. The present mill stands on where there was once a large complex of mill structures, and then a gem stone polishing mill.

I remember at the time that one of the most common questions asked about the series was, "Where is that mill?" If it was only a real mill then perhaps they could have outdone Mabry's Mill's flour sales in just one day. That mill was just basically a hollywood movie set which was made to look good on the television screen. There was also the occasional television set mill as a back drop which appealed to the Southern and rural viewers. The rural purge canceled all rural-themed shows in 1971. Pat Buttram, who played "Mr. Haney" on Green Acres, said at the time, "It was the year CBS killed everything with a tree in it."  That was the one thing that was missing from Hooterville was the Hootersville Milling Company. So Oliver Wendell Douglas rather than asking the country miller for advice he attempted to ask the scatterbrained county agricultural agent "Hank Kimball" for planting information. There also could have been a mills in Pixley or Crabwell Corners. Now we know that there was a mill in Bugtussle, or Silver Dollar City. It was perhaps a budget item. Hire one actor to play a country agent rather than hiring an actor and then construct a set to look like an old mill. The county agent could play against Mr. Douglas on existing sets.



The next mock television mill to be seen my millions of views was Hanson's Lumber Company and Mill, in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, United States. The series "Little House on the Prairie" aired from 1974 until 1983. The town was founded by Lars Hanson which was originally called Hansonville, but was changed when it became a town which was named by Jess Moffet after a group of walnut trees on a hill. The town was later changed to Olesonville. Its population was 127 people, and its neighboring towns were Mankato, Sleepy Eye, Springfield, and Rochester.  Hanson's Mill was a saw mill and a grist mill which where basically movie set props complete with unnatural pumped water to make the water wheel turn.  Little House on the Prairie was largely filmed on Big Sky Ranch at Simi Valley, California. There were vistas and rugged terrain which was far too mountainous for Minnesota, and had the California chaparral vegetation. There were huge discrepancies between the original "Little House on the Prairie" books and the television show. The mill in Walnut Grove had a more traditional design than the one in "Apple's Way."

One of our problems with our modern pop culture is that more people may see or visit a mock mill than to actually have experienced an historical one. I don't know if this is a criticism of the today's world, or simply a product of it because we are living in a time when people do not know where their food comes from.

Restoration Perversion (also called wrong headed direction) is a concept describing those types of mill restorations that are perceived to be a serious deviation from what is considered to be orthodox or normal historical restoration. There are varying forms of deviation, it can be classified in several types: Amusement Park Mill (also known as a Mickey Mouse Mill), Movie Set Mill, Surreal Nostalgic Mill, Hillbilly Mill, and a Bogus Mill.  Besides the Mickey Mouse water wheels that you see in the media, and in amusement parks, there is also "hillbilly water wheels."

Perverted history can take many forms. For example, having everyone dressed in period colonial costume when the mill has been restored to represent a time much later in history. This can also be in the opposite direction where everyone is basically dressed in denim bib overhauls, and "Little House on the Prairie" costume when the mill actually represents a much older period in its restoration.  Another form of perverted history takes the form of "fad restoration." A group or area becomes center around a particular event in the mill's history, and that suddenly becomes the most important date to represent and interpret. The mill may have been constructing in the 1700's and operated well into the 1900's, and during this time saw all of the American Wars of the period. However, because of popular interest they have become fixed on a certain event such as the American Civil War. If someone suddenly decided that we need to restore Peirce Mill, in Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C., to represent the American Civil War, it would be a non-event restoration. Peirce Mill's dam was washed out during the war, and the flour mill and saw mill were not in operation. Furthermore, the trees that would have been harvested for the saw mill had all been cut down, and any new growth was removed because of the construction of the ring of Military Forts around the District. The Argyle or Blagden Mill just above Peirce Mil was in full operation during the war. So that would be a "silly restoration."


Eric Sloane (1905-1999) the sky and weatherman turned American landscape painter, and author of illustrated works on cultural history and folklore may have played some part in American appreciation of old barns and covered bridges. Marion Nicholl Rawson (1878-1956) who was the chronicler of American arts and crafts, and a writer of wonderful books predated Sloane. In her book, "Forever the Farm," her drawings of the various kinds of roofs and fence construction appears to be very similar to Eric Sloane 1966 work "Age of Barns." Marion Nicholl Rawson's classic work is a book called, "Little Old Mills," published in 1935. It is a history of mills in America from colonial times to the mid-20th century, with emphasis on construction.  It is her treatise on the origins and use of all manner of mills in North America. Many intersting anecdotes. Charmingly illustrated. Includes information on basic forces employed, hand and animal power, tide mills and other water powered mills, windmills,and much more. "In the 1600s, countless little mills were buzzing busily throughout the inhabited part of this country. They were hand-power, animal-power, wind and water-power mills, grist mills, saw mills, wool and cotton mills and various other kinds of mills. . This volume is an invaluable source study which will thrill American industrialists, who will see in their imaginations how their own great enterprises began."  Marion Nicholl Rawson also illustrated most of her books with her own drawings and sketches.

However, when it came to old mills that may be a different story with Eric Sloane who did not understand mill technology, and thought that mills were a dead, and dying subject. So what he did not understand, he made up, which was his basic problem with everything else that he dealt with. in the some thirty-five books that he wrote he only provided a bibliography or reference works for just one book, "An Age of Barns," 1966. Eric Sloane's drawings of different millstone dress patterns look more like hex patterns for Pennsylvania Dutch barns than actual or real millstone dress. Eric Sloane is a poor one to give any credit for sparking their interest in old mills and especially about milling technology. What he made up has also become popular folklore. For example, that the overshot water wheel was invented by Connecticut engineers, and New England farmers invented the canal system. His did noting more than a nostalgic attempt to create American's past.  Eric Sloane's article, "The Mills of Early America," which appeared in the October 1955 issue of American Heritage magazine was his closest attempt at writing a book about old mills. So was it a lack of technological information about the workings of old mills which made his drawings of how a mill works like one in a children's book, or was he just trying to simplify it?

What may be a creation of pure fantasy is is the so-called original 1805 writings of Noah Blake in his diary, which Mr. Sloane took "liberties" to bring to life of early American in farming, milling, building, forging, and interaction between parent and child, friendships, and courtly love. "Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake 1805," 1955. The author and artist said he was exploring an ancient house and came upon a small, leather-bound, wood-backed volume bearing the flyleaf inscription: " Noah Blake, my book, March the twenty fifth, Year of ouf Lord 1805. Given to me by my father Isaak Blake and my mother Rachel upon the fifteenth year of my life."  I have always question the authenticity of this found artifact as being real or not. However, when ever someone has come to me with an old miller's or millwright's diary, I have offered up Eric Sloane's book as an example of what they should do with the article in their possession.

Another form of "restoration perversion" is "perverted technology." In these mills the mill machinery is more a kind to erector sets, and Rude Goldbery machines.  Rube Goldbrg in this case it is the underengineered apparatus without the proper understanding of mill technology, its development and its history. It is "absurd technology" which is design without any real relationship to technology which is shown in any millwright's manual, for example, without consulting "The Young Mill-Wright and Miller's Guide, by Oliver Evans, 1795 in 15 editions to 1860. These phony fake interpretations of technology besides not being historically and technologically correct can become modern death traps.  They are incredible machines because they try to preform a function without proper understanding of how it was done.

Hamer Mill reconstructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in Spring Mill State Park in Indiana in the 1930's. The mill is operated from a spring in Hamer Cave. In 1817 limestone was used to construct Bullitt's Mill which later became Hamer's Mill. The limestone is the Hoosier or Salem limestone. The mill was the first restored mill open to the public just before Peirce Mill in Rock Creek Park. The Grist Mill at the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, was the mill mill opened as a mill museum on Thanksgiving Day of 1929. The water wheel shaft enters the building in the same floor as the millstones. This is never how it would have been built originally in an actual operating mill. The Civilian Conservation Corps took the "erector set" approach to the mill gearing where the millstones would have been originally located on the floor above. This may have made the mill handicap accessible, but who in the 1930's ever thought about handicap accessibility? So now they have created the mindset of "replacement in kind" because they have grandfathered in their lack of proper milling technology.  So for almost 75 years now, in most people's living lifetime the mill is not correct in its interpretation of an actual mill's layout.

One of the bad effects of this type of restoration is the mindset idea of "replace in-kind." Once a mill becomes a "mill wrong," it is almost impossible to get it restored correctly. This mind set often happens which basically states, "we don't know what it was like originally, so we are simply going to "replace in-kind." This tends to grandfather in mistakes into people's way of thinking that this was really what it looked like.  No lone alive remembers the mill being laid out differently.

Another bad effect is you have this phony technology and history. The mill becomes "not genuine," or not real, counterfeit, false, hypothetical, giving a false impression of the history and authenticity of what is represented. Some people get the idea in their head to attract or draw visitors what the mill needs is a turning water wheel outside of the mill. The mill may never of had an external water wheel, or may never of had a vertical water wheel in its history. The mill becomes an impostor and swindles our children of a proper understanding of history and technology. Not all mills had external water wheels. It was common from Northern Virginia Northward into Maryland, Delaware, and up into Pennsylvania, where the winters are more severe to have internal water wheel to protect them from the damaging effects of snow and freezing ice.

Another problem which happens in most mill restorations is this idea of bringing in parts from other mills to fill the space of item which may no longer be present. It is one thing to try and preserve parts from other mills of the area, but what happens in the passing of time people forget where that part came from. So in time they presume that the mill may of had something that it never had. An example of this is placing up and down or circular saw mill blades in a grist or flour mill which never had an attached or separate saw mill structure. Peirce Mill in Rock Creek Park has an up and down saw mill blade which may or may not have been from Isaac Pearce's saw mill, but not the later Shoemaker's saw mill.

Store-front, magic, fake, phony, bogus, fraudulent, and novelty mills. A mill shell of a structure in which all or most of its machinery has been removed. Sometimes the machinery (especially metal parts) for the various World War scrap drives.  Other times machinery was removed sold to other mills or public auctions held. Sometimes the mills are converted to other uses. For example, a home, crafts shop, bookstore, art gallery, artist's studio, multi-use facility, antique shop, barn and storage building.

Some mill structures become fraudulent mills when machinery completely unrelated to that mill in brought in from an other mill, often from several states away. This happened to the Barnitz Mill in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. The water turbines, millstones, roller mills, and other machinery was removed so the building could become a warehouse, and the machinery hauled to a mill restoration in New Jersey. The machinery was just randomly placed inside of the New Jersey mill without any notion of its proper location in a mill or without the idea of ever making it function. In removing the machinery from the Barnitz Mill they removed a lot of structural supports which made that building unsafe, and harder to restore years later after the machinery was removed.

Another sad story. Someone purchased the Volant Mills about 1980. The new owner wanted to restore the mill. He was not willing to let anyone view the mill work in progress, and wanted to have a big unveiling of the mill once the restoration was complete. Volant Mills in Volant, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, is a very similar mill to F. A. Drake's Mill in Drake's Mills, Crawford County, Pennsylvania. I told the man who was restoring the mill that I would come and help him, or provide him technical assistance without any charge, but he was not interested in any help. So when he found that the main support beam was rotten underneath the mill, he panicked and sold the mill to the first person who offered him some money for the building.

The problems of turning a mill into a home are almost like turning a barn into a house. The mill has some additional problems. Mils are had to insulate, they are often in flood plains, and for many years birds, insects, mice, and rats have in the structure, and the mill was their source of food. When the mill shut down the miller took his cat with him. In some cases, the insects that were eating the grain, and flour when it was gone, they simply moved into the structure of the building. I have been in one mill in Eastern Pennsylvania, which made pretzel flour, and after the mill shut down the insects did the same thing. As you walked up the stairs from floor to floor each level in the mill became more sponger than the previous floor until you reached the top floor which was almost like walking on marshmallows that looked like a wooden floor. So in 1884 the mill became a tourist nicknack craft gift shop, and now the story is told that the new owners saved the entire mill from falling into the Neshannock Creek. It was not the entire mill and only effected the part of the structure above the mill race. Then they constructed a large diameter undershot water wheel just below the turbine building on the mill race with never any connection to the mill. The tail water coming out of the water turbine pit simply turned the wheel which sometime revolved backwards when it became out of balance. When this wheel rotted away a few years later, people and local television stations got concerted as if their local history was being lost.

Watauga Roller Mill in Sugar Grove, Watauga County, North Carolina, was built before the Civil War by Joseph C. Mast. He built the dam and a grist mill which bolted ground wheat on an old reel which was still in existence in the mill to modern times. This was the first roller mill established in the county by his sons in 1897. They made flour and meal of all kinds of grain.  Joe Mast had several girls who helped him around the mill. When the Federal or Union sholdiers "were approaching this part of the country, Uncle Joe would heave the mill in the care of two girls." The two horse that were used in the mill were given to the two othe girs, who "would get a horse apiece to go though the woods to the top of the far side of Hickory Knob and hit until the Yankees Passed on though....." Federals would remain in Watauga County for almost a month where they would pillage and leave things a mess.

A number of the Mast family members were very upset when the ownership of the mill was sold out of their hands who would have continued to operate the mill. The machinery was removed by a contractor who hauled it to Michigan to be placed in the Pears Mill in Buchanan, an 1857 flour mill.  Same old story, the Yankees came and pillaged once again. The Watauga Roller Mill was converted into a home. I later visited the Pears Mill, and was not impressed with the random method that the mill, and almost erector set approach to the way the machinery was installed. The outside of the mill is very impressive, but the basement mechanism looks very amateurish. I have seen several mill restorations were someone thinks they can operate a millstone using a bicycle chain and gear sprocket. You spend all of that money to build a water wheel and then connect it up to a bicycle mechanism because someone saw in a book that a person had hooked up their bicycle to operate a table top grain mill. This is the same problem they have with the Howes Caverns Mill near Bramanville, New York. Someone took out the four water turbine which operated the mill and the drive transfer system to operate the millstones. Then later a vertical water was installed outside of the mill, and one of the three pairs of millstones was made to turn with a bicycle chain and sprocket. I don't think so! History should be left alone, and interpreted in its original location.


These amusement park or tourist trap mills have this mindset that a large turning water wheel will cause people to pull off the highway, and stop. What you end up with is items for sale which have no interpretive value. For example, an ash tray with the mill's picture in it. There may be valid reasons for a paper weight to be made in the shape of a millstone, but other items with the mill's image on it is just to make money off of the idea of the old mill.


It may be like studying or using your historical model is based upon "Li'l Abner." Do they accurately represent hillbillies, and or mountain culture. Is it just impoverished history with all mills made to look like they were constructed in Dogpatch, U.S.A. So because the inhabitants are lazy hillbillies, they want noting to do with modern technology, and things may have been miserable, but it is old-timey. So when the Beverly Hillbillies went back home in one episode to the Ozark Mountains. The Clampett family actually visited Silver Dollar City in Missouri, to start off the 1969-1970 season. The first 5 episodes of that season were centered around Silver Dollar City.  So there were scenes of the their grist mill in operating in that episode. So the mill has become part of pop culture, and the Missouri Mountains locations became the historic backdrop of the show's nine year run. During the series there are many discrepancies as to the Clampets actual origin and to which state they came from. It could have been from the Great Smoky Mountains in Eastern Tennessee, to the Ozarks of Arkansas or Missouri.


Its "kitsch!" A term from the German or Yiddish which in art, history, or restoration it is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an existing style. It lacks any creativity and originality displayed in genuine architecture. So the items that they sell in their mill store or shop is "kitschy."  Having poor taste is no excuse, and having no taste is also no excuse. I used to sing the P. F. Sloan song, "Eve of Destruction," with one of the lines being changed, "Ah, you don't believe we're on the Eve of Instruction."  Get some education into the project or restoration. Another problem is that there are no standards for "poor taste." The problem with some mill recreations is that they are sentimentality and pretentious bad taste. 

Modern restorations may be done with standards which were not applied to the original construction. One example is the Colvin Run Mill which was restored by Canadian millwright Clifford Curry, and his woodworking assistant. One of the main criticism of this restoration is that it was restored using church carpentry finishing which was never used in mill constructions. Its great to win restoration awards, but mills were never constructed with that detail of construction as you would find in church architecture. The only mill which was constructed with that degree of refinement was the demonstration flour mill which stood in front of the Wolf Company plant in Chambersburg, where they invited their customers to come and see their machinery in operation. The mill on West Commerce Street South of Wolf Lake was constructed using woodworking found in cathedral architecture.

Kitchy are pseudo-mill restorations. They are easily recognizable, but children are exposed to them at an early age, and grow up thinking this is what a real mill looks like. So is there such a thing as all-American kitsch? Its an illusion of a pleasant unspoiled countryside revisionist landscaping with the vision of roadside America.  Such mills as Mabry Mill along the Blue Ridge Parkway have become charismatic relics of early automobile-oriended commercial landscapes that promoters have sought to promote. They are unregulated roadside architecture which is created to become more authentic, and relevant reconstructions that what preservations, and historian have tried to preserve, but was lost to development. Mabry Mill is the rural town ideal of the house, a blacksmith shop, sorghum mill, a moonshine still, and the highlight of the very picturesque old mill. Is it Voodoo Kitsch? Which creates antique collectibles and memorabilia for sale in a souvenir shops which developed this false notion that it is a working grist mill. This is one concession that the federal government should have never let get out of their hands. In reality the souvenir bags of corn meal and grits are made in Temple Milling Company in Sevierville, Tennessee, and the buckwheat flour in made at New Hope Mils, Auburn, New York. These mill simply produce their product, and package it up in Mabry Mill sacks. At one time Cockram (Blackard) Mill in Patrick County, Virginia, produced all of the products for the Mabry Mill, and their geared up their entire output to fill that need until their mill dam broke, and they lost their water power. Mabry Mill sells a million bags of product a year, and that little old mill could never begin to produce that much to meet the demand. Mabry Mill inspired the location for the television series set in Mabry, North Carolina. Mabry Mill's photograph has perhaps been printed on postcards for almost every state in the union with their name in it as if the mill was actually located in that state.

After World War Two most rural American mills were reduced to becoming hobby mills. This does not mean that they were purchased by some retired Detroit auto worker whose life long dream was to purchase an old mill, fix it up, and run it as a retirement hobby. A hobby mill means that it once operating mill, most often a flour mill that became reduced to selling dog and horse food for other people's hobbies. They would end their days as feed mills or become farm stores selling pre-made bags of feed, and various kinds of pet food to people who moved to the country to get away from city life.  In some cases, these now hobby mills have not had their flour making machinery removed for scrap or sold to other still operating mills. So hidden in the back rooms of the hobby mill the machinery may remain becoming rusted while it is covered in layers of dust and cobwebs. The modern farm store clerks in some cases are far removed for being actual millers, and when asked question on how the mill once operated they may pass on more mistruths that correct informaiton. These "gentleman farmers" have independent means and a independent source of income which does not come from economic farming. They run a farm out of interest, and therefore these hobby mills spend their time catering to their needs what ever that may be. The hobby mills see that they do not have any other economic sources of income than to play the role of supplier to the gentleman farmers. In some cases when the mill shut down, the mill owner sat on the mill hoping that one day the federal government would come knocking on their door with the money to restore their families history. Sadly too many times the old mill has fallen into ruin, rusted and rotten to the point that they mill is no longer worth saving while the owner could use the money from the sale to pay for their now old age medical bills. The hobby mill can even become a backdrop for rich people's weddings because after all as the song says, "Down by the old mill stream..........." There is at least one company on the internet that advertises how many log cabins, barns, churches and old mills then take down from West Virginia, and shipped to Japan every year. They have been making their livelihood on selling our history to the highest bidder.


At Knotts Berry Farm, Buena Park, California, there is a grist mill (a.k.a. Campbell's Grist Mill from the 1960's HO scale model which has been for sale for generations).This structure is basically a Western Store front building with a sign on it which says, "Grist Mill." There is a water wheel and sluice box tacked to the building, and a portable burr mill inside of the mill next to a store style counter for sales. It is an early original building in the Ghost Town which is now used for glass blowing demonstrations. The Ghost Town was begun in 1940 and into the 1950's using real old relocated old West town structures which were relocated to the park. With the urbanization of the area the name "berry farm" has become something of a misnomer. The late Walter Knott (1889-1981) may have taken the secret of the Grist Mill to his grave as to it was a real grist mill or not. The building may have been an old Western Store Front Building which was made into a grist mill. Again how many people have grown up only knowing this as the only example of a grist mill structure.


I knew the two men (James Lockhart and Hal Hodge) along with the employees of Silver Dollar city built a grist mill at Silver Dollar City in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, which later became Dollywood when Dolly Parton threatened (planned) to build an amusement park just down the road. This was at a time when the park was having some difficulties. Somewhere between the year 1983 to 85, the project took six months to complete the mll just in time for the park's annual fall crafts festival.  In making a "DRIVER" for the millstones they welded together "six" pieces of iron. So one day when one of them was running the mill (while it was still Silver Dollar City) the welds broke. So before Jim (or Hal) could stop the mill, the pieces got sucked between the millstones, causing the runner to become "grossly" out of balance jumping the spindle. I came though the millstone cover, destroying several pieces of machinery inside of the mill before it went though a 14 inch square log walk coming to rest outside of the mill. Another problem with the mill was the the controls to start, stop, and control the speed of the mill were outside on the opposite side of a reflecting pond below the mill. This happened when during a period when the park was having a lot of safety accident with their rides.



James Lockhart and Hal Hodge changed the traditional forged driver which was made by a blacksmith forged from a single piece of bar stock. To make this item, you start by pounding a square punch though the bar, and continue pounding larger and larger punches through the bar until it reached the thickness of the top of the millstones spindle.  This amusement park mill shows that you cannot change mill technology or improve upon it. It is better left to the traditional construction methods, and you cannot take short cuts which can have disastrous results.  The fun ones is that I have two recent newspaper articles from different parts of the country about these two nationally known millwrights who both basically both said, "We make it up as we go..........We learn by trial and error." That is fine, but their errors can cost their customers 100 thousand dollars or more in their mistakes.

James Lockhart had been involved in some questionable mill restoration projects such as the Peery's Mill on the Little River off of Tennessee Route 73, between Maryville and Townsend, Tennessee, which mysteriously burned down one night after the backer was not happy with the direction in which the restoration project was headed.  The mill used French water turbines that have very long draft tubes to grind flour and meal. Hal Hodge had owned a mill Dumplin Valley Road and Hodges (Mill) Road, Kodak, Tennessee, he was not below advertising the fact that his mill had been declared by the State of Tennessee to produce flour which was only suitable to make library paste.

One of the problems with mill restoration is that there are no standards or guidelines. For a long time, the only standard or guideline was to restore the mill and the structure to "day-one." This meant that the mill was restored to what it looked like when it was first constructed. However, mills are businesses, and a business that don't change, modernize, and spend money soon go out of business. So the fashion it seems now a days is to restore the mill to the present or some other date in its history. The big problem with taking the mill back to "day-one" is you loose all of the changes, history and technology. You often loose the ability to "compare and contrast" where you can say this is how it was done long ago, and this is how it is still done today. Thus having the machinery basically side-by-side in the same structure of different time periods. For many years the people at the Colvin Run Mill told visitors when they asked about what happened to the machinery that was in the mill when it was restored. They were simply told that the machinery, and the water wheel were given to another mill restoration which could make use of them. From the Colvin Run Mill's former miller Jeff Rainey, the site supervisor, and the records of Clifford Curry (the Canadian millwright which restored the mill), the machinery which was in the mill when it was restored was "junked."

One of the old National Park Service maxims among some  interpreters, "Dumb it down stupid!"  Which would simplify the interpretation of any historical site simply by stating, "They lived, they fought and they died," is all visitors are interested in knowing. Any more than that you will loose 99.9% of your group. They will simply get bored, and walk away, or in some cases if they stand there it will be like telling all of the life details to a mindless zombie.


There were many more mills found in the Great Smoky Mountains that what is standing today. This includes mills with different types of water wheels such as  a tub mill, for example: The Jim Carr Tub Mill which stood in Sugarlands above the headquarters of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park until destroyed by a flood in 1951. The long-time GSMNP Historian Ed Trout wrote a very rare hard to find book which on all of the mills of the Great Smoky Mountains. This was a book about all of the mills which once stood and operated in what became the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and not just the ones which are standing today.

A mill is located a half-mile north of the Oconaluftee Visitor Center is Mingus Mill.The National Park Service literature states, "Mingus Mill (built in 1886) stands as a tribute to the test of time." The mill which operated until 1934, was restored in 1937. However, they "dumbed it down."  in the restoration they took a flour mill which sold wholesale and retail flour and meal by removing the flour making machinery, and turned it into a two pair millstone "grist mill" instead of a commercial flour mill.  A mill that sells bleached white flour just does not sound "old timey."  This speaks to our teen centered society. "Dumb, is the new stupid!' They also dumbed down the John P. Cable Mill by removing the second pair of millstones (and the gearing) which was used to grind wheat, and removing the Miller's Office. This was a separate structure from the mill which contained a wood stove on the opposite end of the bridge leading to the mill. The miller's office is where the mill's customers first looked for the miller when they brought grain to the mill. I know because I worked in their mill and learned a lot from Pete Tipton about the mill.

At Rake's Mill Pond very near the Mabry Mill, the miller or mill owner had one of his miller's helpers stationed in a small structure near the mill pond. This building was similar to school children's bus shelter. The miller's helper could check each customer and then grant him and his family the day use of the mill pond and stream for fishing, swimming, ice skating, or picnicking. When the National Park Service planned and constructed the Blue Ridge Parkway in the mid-1930's the dissuasion was made that they would only keep and restore one example of a grist mill along the parkway. A similar dissuasion was made with the Smoky Mountains about the same time. Only two examples of mill would be restored, one with a water wheel and the other with a water turbine and two static examples of tub mills. All other mill would be torn down, while some structures were relocated to form groups of buildings. The National Park Service standard of creating bogus history.

An example of this is the Old Stone House in Georgetown, Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C. The basic National Park Service interpretation that the house was built by Christopher Layman who was a cabinet maker. In reality Christopher and Rachel Layman purchased the building lot in 1764. He died in planning to construct the house in 1765 to 1767, and never lived in the house. if anyone bothers to read the inventory of his possessions when he died, there is not enough tools to have made him a cabinet maker or wood worker. This is silly logic because a screw driver and wrench in a kitchen drawer does not make someone a car mechanic. Rachel Layman remarried a clockmaker who may have had a clock maker's shop on the front ground floor of the structure. The house was later sold to Mrs. Cassandra Chew the National Park Service interpretation of that period of history may differ greatly from Cassandra Chew use of the house. In the National Park Service version of history Cassandra Chew is an early Washington and Georgetown socialite, but in reality she and her daughters may have use the house for because they were ladies of the evening. In a seaport town being a socialite and prostitute dichotomy may be a similar thing. The house was never demolished because for many years folklore said that Washington and L'Enfant used it as George Washington's Headquarters in planning out the new federal city. The house is part of haunted Washington tour, where mysteriously, a rolling pin rolls off the cupboard and lands in the middle of the kitchen floor without disrupting any dishes in it's path.



Slone's Grist Mill which was moved from Franklin County, Virginia, to Virginia's Explore Park has all of the material culture and popular cultural imagery to knock Mabry Mill off the top of list of most photographed mill in the United States. Like Mabry Mill which has perhaps appeared on the cover of every phone book in America, Slone's Mill has all of the bells and whistles to out do Mabry Mill at every possible point. Slone's Mill has the song of a large diameter turning overshot water wheel. The sounds of the water wheel, the gears and millstones operating is music to any visitors ears.  A visit to Slone’s Grist Mill was a discovery of the 19th century mills, and their importance in everyday life.  Sadly the song of the old mill was silenced when the Park closed down for good on November 18, 2007.

Paul Robeson the American actor, athlete, concert singer, writer, and civil rights activist said, "Get them to sing your song and they will know who you are." In interpretation and demonstration milling this means that if a visitor goes home, and talked to some one about your site, perhaps how neat is was, or what they learned. If they purchased a book, a sack of product, looked on the internet for more information, searched for other similar historical sites to visit, or simply put money in your donation box before they left. Then you have done your job, and have accomplished your mission of the site.

You don't want to develop this problem which they referred to in interpretation classes in the National Park Service, "A Little Museum on the Prairie Mentality," because those working at the site can not see beyond their small surrounding area.  Therefore, it is not worth their consideration, or what we feel as imporant. They tend to over state their own self importance, and deny that they are part of a larger picture. Their credo seems to state unless it was born; lived; educated; married; divorced: worked; elected to public office; or died in the state, they have no interest in it, or talking to you, and would certainly never consider you for employment. In many other parts of the country, flour and grain milling existed long before Minnesota was thought of, and in some cases, Minnesota, and Minneapolis milling is considered the enemy to their continued existence. My apologies to Laura Ingalls Wilder for the analogy to her life and writing. If she had lived in another place and time, perhaps the Park Service example may have been "Little Museum on the Allegheny Mountains, Desert, or even the Rainforest."

The Slone Grist Mill exhibit is the real thing. The story of the mill is a colorful milling family's story because of some missing gears and pulleys. Things happen and in the passage if time things change. The mill which was moved to the park contained parts of the family's earlier mill located down the mill race from the later site. This mill race also served the first mill constructed in Franklin Count, Virginia. I have found an almost exact duplicate mill in North Carolina. There is a sense that everything on display is an original artifact. The mill exhibit that was carefully researched. It is a truthful representation of what Esom Slone and his sons could have been like in days and times past. The only thing missing from the exhibit was the nearby general store operated by Esom Slone which is still standing down the road in what is today a farm building grouping.

From the beginning of Virginia's Explore Parks grist mill project they have had one of the leading authorities on early american mills and milling, Ted Hazen. Mr. Hazen completely researched the mill project from developing a history base of information to creating educational programs for the grist mill. He compiled an inventory of artifacts that the restored mill should have in their catalog of historical items.  He planned the restoration, and the interpretation at the demonstration grist mill. Ted Hazen created a powerhouse of information for the mill to make it a premiere historic demonstration mill in the country and the world.