Our Old Mill
History In The Making

Our Story Through The Decades
Millstones & Milestones
The Old Mill’s story began nearly two centuries ago when local farmers with sacks of grain traveled to the newly built gristmill along the Little Pigeon River. Those trips to the mill resulted in meal and flour for cooking, and they also were opportunities to socialize and build community. In time, our town of Pigeon Forge was born.
Today, the Old Mill is one of the oldest continually operating gristmills in the country and one of the most photographed mills in America. We invite you to look through our unique history.
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A westward-moving settler, Mordecai Lewis, leaves Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and settles in East Tennessee. John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, encouraged Virginians such as Lewis to come to this area following the Revolutionary War. In 1794, he was appointed Coroner of Sevier County as well as a Justice of the Peace.
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Issac Love, the son-in-law of Mordecai Lewis, inherits the land after Lewis’s death and builds an iron forge along the west branch of the river. It was a logical setting for a forge. Iron ore was found in the hills, timber could be burned to create charcoal to fuel the fires, and the river was a source of unending power for the large hammer. Seeing the glow from distant hills and ridges, locals would say “The fires of hell could not burn brighter or hotter.”
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The Civil War begins. Tennessee is the last state to secede from the Union. East Tennessee, in particular, was split between the Union and Confederacy. The mill owner, John Trotter, was a Unionist, and on the second floor of his mill, he sets up secret knitting looms to produce clothing for Union soldiers based in the Gatlinburg area. There was also a makeshift hospital on the third floor. The Old Mill is listed on the Civil War Trail of Tennessee.
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