THE OLD WHITEHEAD MILL

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Another monument in Whitehead is fading away. The old mill has seen better days and nights. It won't be long before it's as gone away as the old barn behind it that fell down from the weight of snow several years ago. I've seen surveyors and been told the state is changing the road through there and maybe the bridge. That's not even hearsay, but it does look like something along that line is happening there.

Daniel Whitehead and Doc Billings are two men I've been told operated the mill at different times. Glen Richardson and John Joines made caskets upstairs. There was a time that mill was the focal point of Whitehead where you took your grain to be ground into meal. It wasn't in the trunk of the car or back of the pickup, either.

Tom Pruitt lived 4 miles up the mountain from the mill and would carry a 50 lb bag of grain on his shoulders down the mountain to Whitehead. He'd carry the 50 lb bag of meal back up the mountain 4 miles on foot. Once, I asked him if he could guestimate how many times he'd walked to Whitehead and back. He went inside his forehead and calculated for a moment. He said, 'About six thousand.' I'd say that was close.

Jr Maxwell told me about the old barn that is gone now, when he was 12, one night he and another kid took Jr's horse, Prince, and some pulleys and ropes to the barn. It was J.D. Fender's barn at the time. They deconstructed a wagon, piece by piece, and using ropes, pulleys and the horse, pulled the parts to the top of the barn. They reassembled the wagon on the spine of the barn roof and mystefied all of Whitehead next day. That would have been around 1934. He said no one ever knew they did it. They didn't tell and no one would imagine 12 year olds could do such a thing. He said the grownups had a heck of a time getting the wagon down from there.