Category: Mill

Yates Mill

History, Mill

Last week I was passing through Raleigh, North Carolina and I stopped by Yates Mill on Lake Wheeler Road. Yates Mill is a fully restored, and operational circa 1756 gristmill.  Located in Historic Yates Mill County Park, the mill is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is the only restored operational automatic mill in North Carolina and probably the most complete, accurate, and original example in the country. Head miller William Robbins kindly showed me around and invited me back to watch the mill operate and grind corn meal, which they do every 3rd weekend of the month, March through November. For more information, go to http://www.ncsu.edu/project/yates-mill/home.htm or http://www.wakegov.com/parks/yatesmill/default.htm.

(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh0

Cox’s Mill

History, Mill

A mile or so from the Hinshaw Barn near Buffalo Ford on the Deep River in Randolph County, North Carolina is Cox’s Mill, the last intact water powered grist mill in the county and one of the last in the state. Built around 1900 on Mill Creek by a Beane, it was run by several different millers during it’s history. It sits adjacent to an 18th century mill site also called Cox’s mill. Raymond and Flossie Cox ran the mill from 1938 till around 1983, grinding flour and cornmeal and then feed, using water for power till 1953 and then converting to diesel and electricity. The mill is closed now, but all of the equipment is still on site and intact including the wheel.

I stopped by the mill on a snowy day to take a couple of photographs and spoke to Miss Flossie as she is called. She talked about the history of the mill she and her husband worked for over 40 years (and she worked the equipment beside her husband Raymond) and she told me of some of the other folks who were connected to it. I found out her mother was my great aunt’s sister; small world. Then she told me that John Routh also once ran the mill. I was floored. John was my great grandfather and I live in his house. I knew he was a miller all his life, but never knew his connection with this mill.

I don’t know how long Cox’s Mill will remain. Though intact, the roof is failing and the creek is slowly eating away at it’s foundation. Unless someone restores it, and that’s not likely, it will soon disappear and along with it the last chapter of a part of Randolph County history.

Flossie and Raymond Cox (Photo courtesy of Flossie Cox)

(Photographs copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)

Fire in Franklinville

History, Mill


I visited another mill yesterday in Randolph County, but this time the circumstances were more unfortunate than usual. The Franklinsville Manufacturing Company, also known as the Franklinville Mill built in 1838 and the oldest water powered cotton mill left in North Carolina was heavily damaged by a fire, probably caused by arson. I met Mac Whatley of the Randolph Heritage Conservancy who owns the mill and had hoped to preserve and restore the most historic parts into a museum. Mac showed me around and the damage was pretty extensive. A very old 3 story part of the structure was destroyed. Fortunately, a portion of the mill housing a large number of historic textile artifacts was saved and they are being moved to safer storage. Old buildings like this probably don’t seem important to most people, but the cotton textile industry was at one time the backbone of the local Randolph County economy and Deep River was lined with similar facilities. The most historic of those mills deserve to be preserved and the loss of this one in Franklinville is particularly painful. For more information on the history of the mill, go to http://www.cottonmillmuseum.org.









(Photographs copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)

Mill Machinery

Greensboro, Mill


I made a trip out to the Old Mill of Guilford yesterday to pick up some stone ground grits for my son in New Hampshire. He’s in school at Dartmouth, and evidently grits are hard to come by in Hanover. I pick some up for him every couple of months. I enjoy going by the mill and looking at the old milling machinery. I come from a family that had about four generations of millers, so there must be some flour in my genes. And, you can fit 14 pounds of grits nicely in a USPS Flat Rate Box.






(Photographs copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)

Feline Repose

Cat, Mill, Poetry

(Photograph copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)

Strutting down his wooden catwalk,
Whiskers poised, he purrs and stalks
Mice below the mill worn bedrocks,
But first he stops to strike a pose.

Yes, he knows that we can see him.
We are guests within his kingdom.
Nothing stays unless he lets them
(He even chases off the crows).

After noon he’ll find a shadow
Chase it as he fights a battle
Under brush, through herds of cattle,
Until he stops to then repose.

(Poetry copyright 2010 by Devin Routh)

Loading Feed

Agriculture, Mill, Portraits

(Photograph copyright 2010 by Dan Routh)

Neighbor Bobby Bradds loads hog feed at the local mill in Julian, North Carolina. It’s an old style feed mill where farmers can still bring their own grain and have it custom ground. Bobby raises “farm raised” pork for the local Greensboro market. His hogs are allowed to roam in a pasture and not shut up in commercial pens, part of the rising “slow food” movement in our area.