1906 and still running.  An overshoot waterwheel gear drives through multiple shafts and belts.

The mill has powered many a business: a lumber mill, a cotton gin, cotton and wool carding, fiber making, and weaving.   It has had its periods of disrepair too but fortunately still survives.  I always enjoy seeing the ingenuity and craftsmanship of this old technology.  Nowadays they grind corn and wheat for flour, corn meal and grits and a bit of coarse cracked corn for the local distillery.

The mill has been though many owners/operators.  It is part of a bed and breakfast property now that is run by a “retired” couple.  They have a log cabin guest house.  It was pretty cozy looking.

A cotton bag.  It is amazing how complete an image this one item can conjure up in my mind.  It is a long cloth bag that the pickers (when it was a person not a machine) looped over their shoulder and dragged though the field as they stuffed it full of ripe cotton.  When it got full they dragged it to the filed scales where it was weighed and emptied and they started all over again.  They had one of these bags in the little museum at the mill.  Made me glad I didn’t grow up in the rural south.