Hooker Falls stands only 12 feet high, its wide drop into a pool creates a beautiful setting and an excellent spot for splashing around on hot summer days.
Hooker Falls has been known to residents for years and was named for Edmund Hooker, who operated a mill below the falls in the late 1800s. The Falls were featured in the movie The Last of the Mohicans, where characters in canoes fall over the water.
Hooker Falls
Holstein cotton gin, circa 1850, was moved to Hart Square and restored in 1993. This type of structure caused cotton to become king in the Southeastern United States in the 1800s. Through extensive research, Dr. Hart and his associates have recreated the technical inner workings of the mill, which now processes cotton just as it did 150 years ago.
Tucker Cotton Press
Tucker Cotton Press Closeup
Cotton Ginning Old Equipment
In Hart Square, parts of two old water mills, circa 1760, were used to reconstruct this 18th-century grist mill, which was operational until 1957. The grist mill was one of the most important businesses in early settlements. Settlements frequently appeared as a direct result of the existence of a grist mill. The importance was due to the fact that this was where people brought their corn and grain to be processed, two foodstuffs that were staples of life then as well as now.
Grist Mill
Entry to Grist Mill
Posting, on a delayed basis, a series of images from Mabry Mill in North Carolina.
Rich in history, Mabry Mill is one of the most iconic and photographed structures on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Ed Mabry built the mill where he and his wife Lizzy ground corn, sawed lumber, and did blacksmithing for three decades.
Darbargadh Poshina has interesting artifacts from the past including this hand operated stone flour mill. Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. Millstones come in pairs – the runner stone spins above the stationary bedstone creating the “scissoring” or grinding action of the stones.
An Essential Item from the Past
Situated on the east bank of the Mississippi in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Pillsbury Flour Mill took advantage of the power produced by St. Anthony Falls to produce 17,500 barrels of flour per day. Pillsbury A Mill was added to the list of National Historic Landmarks in 1966. Of the four large flour mills in the city during the peak of Minneapolis’s reign as the milling capital of the country, the Pillsbury A Mill is the only one remaining.
Pillsbury Flour Mill at Night
The Stone Arch Bridge is a former railroad bridge crossing the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the only arched bridge made of stone on the entire length of the Mississippi River.
The Pillsbury A-Mill, seen here behind the Stone Arch Bridge, held the title of largest flour mill in the world for 40 years. Completed in 1881, it was owned by Pillsbury and operated two of the most powerful direct-drive waterwheels ever built, each generating 1,200 horsepower (895 kW). The mill still stands today on the east side of the Mississippi River and has been converted into resident artist lofts.
Stone Arch Bridge over Mississippi
A water wheel for an old mill at Hart Square (A village from the 1800s preserved in its entirety right here in the hills of Hickory, North Carolina.)
A Water Wheel