RC&D Grant Means Upgrades for Grist Mill

by Eddie May, District Conservationist, Talladega Field Office, AL

The Coosa Valley Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) Council awarded a grant to the Childersburg Heritage Committee to help renovate the historic Kymulga Grist Mill.

The grist mill is located on Grist Mill Road about four miles northeast of Childersburg. The mill is more than 140 years old, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The mill, and a covered bridge also on Grist Mill Road, are the only pair of such structures in Alabama that still stand where they were originally built on Talladega Creek.

The grist mill has five sets of grinding rocks, with two sets coming from France. A slave drove a two-yoke pair of oxen to Mobile to haul the grinding stones back to the mill. They are called French buhrs, and are supposedly the hardest rocks in the world.

The owner who built the mill was a confederate army captain. The contractor was a German from South Carolina named G.E. Morris. He was an inventor and had a foundry in South Carolina where he made all the gears and parts used in the mill. This historic mill is still in operation today. White and yellow cornmeal ground by the original stones, grits and sorghum syrup may be purchased at the mill. The mill is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a. m. to 5 p. m.

Luther Crowe, president of the Childersburg Heritage Committee, said, “The grant funds will be used to finish repairs underneath the mill, which includes concrete work for the foundation. We are trying to keep the water from going under the mill. We have not been able to do too much recently because of the high water from the creek.”

The RC&D program is administered by the USDA-NRCS. The Coosa Valley RC&D Council is a grass-roots organization that provides seed money to empower community development. The Coosa Valley Council is comprised of representatives of the local Soil and Water Conservation District and the County Commission.

Heidi Richards, coordinator for the Coosa Valley RC&D Council, said, “The council is composed of 11 counties in east central Alabama: Talladega, Calhoun, Chambers, Tallapoosa, Cherokee, Etowah, Clay, Cleburne, Randolph, St. Clair, and Coosa. The Council is honored to partner with the Childersburg Heritage Committee to help preserve this historic site.”

Among those attending the presentation ceremony were State Representative Ron Johnson, County Commissioner Jimmy Robertson, Childersburg city clerk Sandra Donahoo representing Mayor B.J. Meeks, chamber executive director Pete Story, representatives from the soil and water conservation district, NRCS, and members of the Heritage Committee.

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