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Ozarks Notebook: From Community to Culture – the Evolving Role of Ozarks Mills [1]
['Kaitlyn Mcconnell', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2025-01-22
The importance of place and our connection to it are crossroads I regularly travel through while wandering down Ozarks backroads. As the world changes and rural spaces evolve, it’s striking to me that emotional connections remain – and why they’re important.
Mills are one of these Ozarks culture carriers. Many powered by water, these landmarks have been out of commission in their traditional sense for generations. Most, in fact, were out of regular use by the time the 20th century arrived, changes led by modernization and easier travel.
So how do they remain so popular?
Is it nostalgia for a simpler time? Passed-down personal connections? Or connections made with the mills as they are today, rather than what they were?
“(Mills) can hit a lot of facets of peoples’ personalities – technology, history, and the just fact that people love the outdoors,” says Barbara Baird, a writer who has spent years visiting regional mills. “They’re huge tourism draws. People love them[…]Even though they might have rollers or water wheels or turbines, each one is different. Each one has its own personality.”
Barbara has seen the lasting popularity of these places firsthand. She runs a Missouri newspaper-column-turned-blog called the Accidental Ozarkian and saw such interest in mills that she wrote a book about them. “Milling Around,” released in 2024, explores 26 mills in the Missouri Ozarks.
“Between the 1830s and 1930s, hundreds of mills populated the Missouri Ozarks. Many of these mills still stand today, and a few get activated for special occasions,” Barbara writes in the book’s introduction, sharing moments when she’s personally seen those mills come to life.
“I can’t even begin to describe the energy that pulsed throughout that old building, as the dust of the ages swirled through the air like fresh hatches on a trout stream. I will never forget those times.”
Jolly Mill, built in the mid-1800s, is the center of Jolly Mill Park, a privately owned park in rural Newton County, Missouri. Visitors can pay a small fee to use the grounds as a scenic picnic spot, or visit during seasonal corn-grinding demonstrations on select Saturdays. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
History of Mills
In the 1800s, mills were an integral part of Ozarks communities (as well as others across the country). Farmers who grew wheat and corn would bring those crops to the nearest mill to be ground, giving them a chance to conduct business and visit with friends.
“Dawt Mill – I remember going down there with the wheat and the corn,” Lyndell Strong, now 96, told me recently of her growing-up years of a mill in the rural Missouri Ozarks. “They’d grind it for Dad and we’d take the flour and meal back home. There was a great big old rock on the edge of the river there before you started to cross. Mom would fix us a lunch, and we’d take that and sit on the rock and eat.”
Most of those mills had closed by the early 20th century, made obsolete by “modern” life and roads, which made travel to larger communities easier and less of life being farm-reliant. Some shifted to animal feed before shuttering altogether.
What came next for these mills varies.
Some ultimately entered state, federal or nonprofit hands. Like Alley Mill, a centerpiece of Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the country’s first federally protected river system; Dillard Mill, owned by the L-A-D Foundation but leased to Missouri State Parks; and Falling Spring Mill, overseen by the U.S. Forest Service.
Alley Mill is part of Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the country’s first federally protected riverway system. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
Many others, however, remained privately owned. Mill tour routes were being shared by local chambers. Even today, Ozark County, Missouri, has a tab just for “historic grist mills” on its website. Some were seen as revenue-driving tourist attractions, while others are there more for the general cultural common good.
Just a couple of examples include the aforementioned Dawt Mill, which is now a tourist resort. Rockbridge, another mill in the same county, has become a destination for hunting and fishing enthusiasts (and fans of a great trout dinner).
On the other side of the Missouri Ozarks is Jolly Mill, one of those nonprofit-held mills that’s the centerpiece of a private park and one of the last remaining remnants of the defunct community of Jollification. In warmer months, descendants of the mill’s founder do corn-milling demonstrations.
“Imagine going out there with a cross-cut saw, cutting those logs, skidding them with horses, cutting them to the length, hewing them out,” Bob Haskins, the mill’s fourth-generation demonstrator. “Can you imagine the work? That’s why I’m humbled every time I come in here. That’s why I make such a big deal out of this structure.”
Another example is Topaz, a time-capsule-like spot in rural Douglas County, Missouri, that’s a town-turned-tourist attraction. A half-hour or so from the nearest grocery store, the rural spot was once a thriving community with a general store, mill, barbershop, baseball team and post office.
All of those operations were shuttered around World War II, but today, the “town” is visited by hundreds of people annually.
“People just love old mills for some reasons – I don’t know why,” says Joe Bob O’Neal, who oversees Topaz Mill along with his wife, Betsy. “They just like coming out here.”
Joe Bob O’Neal’s ancestors bought Topaz – the remnants of a community in rural Douglas County, Missouri – in the 1950s. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
In the 1950s, Joe Bob’s ancestors purchased Topaz. The retreat’s spring-fed water supply – which once powered the mill – was a draw for the farming family who lived in a part of the Ozarks experiencing drought.
While they didn’t buy the property to save the mill and store, they gradually made improvements and welcomed visitors.
The O’Neals don’t charge anyone to see the store and mill, and open both up for tours whenever anyone trundles down the rugged gravel road. That effort is important to Joe Bob, who sees part of his efforts to welcome visitors to Topaz as a continuation of his family legacy.
“People love to see that, and I just love to show it to them,” Joe Bob tells me of the historic structures. “If people don’t get to see it, it might as well not be here.”
The Future
What will help these connections live on into the future? I think it’s a money-and-moments equation. After all, you have to have the mills standing to make memories, and you can’t paint or renovate a mill with popularity.
Even for government-protected mills, the future isn’t always certain. That came to mind a few months ago when Montauk Mill, the centerpiece of Montauk State Park, was so significantly damaged that one of its interpreters took to social media to ask if anyone knew of nonprofits that would work with state agencies.
And in cases like Topaz, a $20 here and a $100 there don’t negate the need for greater funds for bigger projects.
Topaz’s mill is still filled with equipment used to grind wheat and corn. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
So that is definitely a factor for many of these places. But in my mind, a bigger one goes back to the heart of the matter: That sometimes inexplicable emotional tie to these places.
I asked people on Facebook why they were interested in mills. Out of the 65-or-so comments, some said it was the technology. Others said it was the outdoor spaces in which mills typically sit. One person said it was the realization that this typically remote place was once the center of life, even if it doesn’t look that way today.
Those sentiments are good. Because, in my opinion, equally valuable with money to mills’ future is interest. You can’t buy that. You have to create it. And you have to share it.
“The first stop after arriving was at a vertical steel pipe that exited the mill pond beside the waterfall to take a long drink,” says Toney Aid, whose family owned Aid-Hodgson Mill for many years. (A fun fact: This particular mill has become an anomaly in the Ozarks mill landscape as it rose to national recognition as the icon for Hodgson Mill baking brand.)
Decades later, Toney recalls vivid details about the experience of visiting the mill: From the small general store where sodas were sold, the cabins to stay the night, a pond in which to swim and other draws that made the experience memorable.
Hodgson Mill is located in rural Ozark County, Missouri, but has risen to national fame by being the icon and name of the Hodgson Mill flour brand. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
“My point is that a mill and its surroundings, like the candles on a birthday cake, elevate the event and give everyone that much more to talk about when they return to town,” he says. “ In the first half of the 1900’s those stories were valuable property after a weekend out of town, to be told and retold in the cafes and stores around the square and down the avenue.”
These memory-creating sentiments are echoed by folks like Dan and Betty Manning, who as young adults in the 1970s helped lead the restoration of Wommack Mill in Fair Grove, Missouri. The Mannings had moved to the small Missouri community and met the widow of the shuttered mill’s longtime operator, which began to form their own personal connections.
“At that time there were quite a few folks who told us about the mill’s significance in the community and how much they loved the millers,” they wrote me. “From the mill’s construction in 1883 until the early-1900s, there were no telephones. Radios and television sets came much later. When people brought grain to the mill for grinding, they also exchanged information. At times, Fair Grove’s post office was located in the mill.”
In the decades since its restoration, the community has evolved but the mill has remained an icon – both for larger community events, like its decades-running community ice cream social, but also for more individual slices of life like weddings, funerals and reunions.
Wommack Mill, also known as the Boegel and Hine Flour Mill, is located in Fair Grove, Missouri. After its restoration in the later part of the 20th century, it became a community centerpiece for new generations of locals. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
“Mills were at every settlement, and therefore represent its history,” Betty Manning wrote to me. “That goes for churches too. Young people today don’t have that recognition, but have heard it from grandparents. They want to have their photos taken there during proms and graduation, probably because of the fun they’ve had at celebrations on the mill grounds when they were kids.”
Perhaps we aren’t all that different today from our ancestors. Maybe stories and romanticism still play a role in mills’ future by fueling our minds and imaginations of what was, and what can be.
“An important factor from the 1920s to today is the opportunity for a captivating photograph,” Toney, the former mill owner, adds. “From the Kodak Brownie to a cell phone selfie, it is hard to pass by a mill and not take a snapshot. Grandmother to add to her photo album, my daughter to post instantly to Facebook. The image of a mill is captivating.
“It supplies a touch point with a past way of life.”
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