One of my third grade textbooks in language arts I remember to this day. And from it, curiously, comes my lifelong interest in gristmills. It was a reader and workbook called “Singing Wherls,” and was written around the theme of a pioneer village in the early 19th century, one of those little settlements rugged Americans carved out of the wilderness as they moved west through Kentucky in search of “elbow room.” Of course looking back 60 yeees, it was what we’d term “politically incorrect,” but when you’re 8-years-old and the world is opening up before your eyes, you’re not going to be aware of such things as revisionist history. The book was just one great pioneer adventure story.

The reader and workbook exercises featured vocabulary words and sentence building practice from selections from the reader about this example of a prototypical early frontier town. The town businesses included a general store, harness maker, blacksmith, sawmill and, of course, a grist mill on a small stream alongside of which the settlement was laid out.

This entire tableau of the settlement in the wilderness fed my young imagination, and I could see the stagecoach pulling up in front of the small inn and tavern. That village, with its gristmill and tail race canal, remained long after in my memories of that school year. It helped also because from a very early age I’ve been interested in small towns, I guess because they appeared so uniquely different in every way from the big city of New Orleans and its suburbs where I grew up.

When I was traveling across the country back in the 1980s, I’d always be on the alert for places where I could see old mills. To me they are the last vestiges along with covered bridges , of a gentler, pre-automobile age, an age about which I am hopelessly idealistic and which I romanticize as some kind of “golden age,” often choosing to ignore all the evidence of what life could be like in those raw little places out in the middle of the country.

Nevertheless, I hold onto and cherish visions of simpler times so people knew each other in their shared communities and worked to hold those places together. It’s a far cry from the sprawling, isolating cities of 21st-century America.

Years have passed since I visited a grist mill and took photographs. One memorable visit stands out. Many years ago I returned from a trip, coming back through the mountains of Southwest Virginia. I stayed that night in the town of Abingdon and the next morning drove a few miles to White’s Mill, a beautiful old structure with a nice water wheel, fine, weathered old wood siding, and a swift mountain creek that turned the water wheel. It’s also in one of the prettiest sections of rolling foothills and mountains I’ve ever seen. I immensely enjoyed enjoy the drive out to that mill and the conversation I had with owner, who was carrying on the tradition of keeping up the mill as authentically as possible.

I also liked to write stories about such places whenever I could during the years I worked on newspapers. I loved doing that kind of feature story. It was truly a step back in time and coincided with my long-standing interest in U.S. history.

In my travel journal of May 8, 1984, written in Columbia Missouri, I wrote about a visit to the Ozarks region of southern Missouri and described some gristmills I had read about in a National Geographic special publication on backroads America. The scenery the beauty of the places I visited was so striking, and were just far enough out in the country along backroads to make it appear as if the setting had not changed that much in all the years since the mills had been built. Here is my journal entry

Here is that journal entry from May 1984:

I slept well last night at Smalley’s Motel in Van Buren. The day on the road started with a classic breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, toast, juice and coffee at the Float Stream Restaurant. All the locals seemed to be there talking and having their coffee.

I drove along a scenic hilltop road to Big Spring, four miles out from town. This is the largest spring in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world. It is amazing to see the clear, green water bubbling up from the depths and forming a small river that merges with the Current River about 1000 feet from the base of the spring. It’s all part of the Ozarks part of the Ozark National Scenic Waterways, the Current and Jack’s Fork rivers both included. It was quite cool and windy at the spring, and the Current River was running high and flowing fast because of recent rains.

In Van Buren before I left for Alley Spring and Grustmill, I stopped at the local National Park Service headquarters. Their Millie West told me about the blue-green waters of the Current and that she had grown up in the Jack’s Fork area. She indicated that the water is a special tint of blue, unusual in a river, and people who moved away come back years later to float the stream to make sure it’s still as blue as they remember. She added that the river is walk-to-wall floaters in the summer, starting about the time school lets out.

I rather hated to leave Van Buren, but many other stops lay ahead. Soon I was on my way to Alley Spring and mill, a notable landmark just off the Jack’s Fork River about 30 miles from Van Buren. Jack’s Fork is a tributary of the Current River.

Before arriving at the mill, I passed through the town of Eminence and stopped there at the Rexall Drugstore on Main Street to get postcards, and also bought a local publication, “Reflections at Alley Spring,” by Writer and artist Tanya Gray. It’s filled with descriptive stories and accounts of the area. Above the drugstore was a sign that read, “Soda Fountain Service Available.”

Alley Spring surges up into a round, rock-rimmed basin adjacent to the very fine old red frame mill built around 1870. On the site also is a fully and authentically furnished one-room schoolhouse called Story Creek School.

So fascinated am I by gristmills that I will go to some lengths to find them. I took a 50-mile detour to visit Dillard Mill Historic Park right in the middle of the Mark Twain National Forest at the tiny community of Dillard. Huzzah Creek is nearby, and the mill, built around 1907 was in good shape and well worth the effort to find it. Hodgson Mill, which I visited yesterday, is one of the most appealing and classic gristmills I’ve ever seen. It has a very distinctly aged appearance, and has held up well to the test of time and has been lovingly cared for. The mill and the entire surroundings form a picture perfect setting. Hodgson Mill was featured on the cover of that National Geographic special publication on backroads of America that I mentioned earlier.

The road to Dillard Mill had been empty, to say the least. For mile after mile the landscape could’ve been wilderness to all appearance. Not a car, house, sign or even mailbox by the road. I zipped up and down wooded Ozark hills often with a sensation of being on a roller coaster. Finally I got back on main highways and proceeded to the state capital of Jefferson City. What a day of exploring!

I don’t think I could have appreciated or developed such a love for gristmills, their history, design, and the essential role they played in the growth and expansion of small villages and towns in the 18th and 19th centuries, had it not been for that excellent and unforgettable third grade teacher and the *Singing Wheels “ reader back in 1959. Not to mention aesthetic and scenic qualities. Thank you to teachers everywhere who instill a love of learning in their students.

From Singing Wheels
https://www.flickr.com/gp/camas/83EqEG

White’s Mill in the mountains of Southwest Virginia
https://flic.kr/p/2nxAPoV