 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
The same ol’ grind
After 200 years of existence, Readyville Mill is experiencing a resurgence of popularity and a new generation of customers
| By Mark E. Johnson, Photos by Mark E. Johnson and Allison Morgan |
7/2/2012 |
Arthur “Rat” McFerrin had an idea:
Let the chickens turn on the lights.
Having purchased Readyville Mill some 20 years earlier — in 1887 — from previous owner Sam Hayes, Rat was constantly “tinkering” with ways to make the four-story Cannon County structure and its sister buildings more efficient and productive. Known for his inventiveness, Rat had already devised a method for converting the energy created by the mill’s waterwheel into electricity. While most of the world was still lit by gas lantern, kerosene lamp, and candlelight, Rat was using electricity to illuminate his facility, which included a flour mill and sawmill along with his own addition: a newly finished ice plant. To his delight, Rat discovered that he had more electricity than he needed.
As the story goes, the miller shared his “wealth” by personally installing light bulbs into each of the small homes and businesses that comprised Readyville in those days. He then ran the wires back to a room in the mill where a lever engaged the dynamo that received its energy from the waterwheel’s 350-horsepower turbine.
But someone had to be present to lower the lever each evening before dark.
“I guess Rat got tired of doing it himself,” laughs Tomm Brady, the mill’s current owner. “He solved the problem with good ol’ American ingenuity.”
Rat built a chicken coop in the dynamo room and attached a small platform to the arm of the lever, creating the only available roosting spot for the poultry, explains Tomm. Every evening at dusk, the chickens launched themselves, one by one, onto the platform. Eventually, their combined weight gently lowered the lever and engaged the dynamo.
On came the lights in Readyville.
The next morning, as their own internal wiring instructed, the chickens hopped down.
Off went the lights in Readyville.
Thanks to an unlikely combination of a Rat and his chickens, the tiny town — not much more than a smattering of homes and a business or two — enjoyed electric lights before Murfreesboro or even much of Nashville, says Tomm, a devoted customer of Rutherford Farmers Cooperative.
“It seems that creativity and entrepreneurship have been a part of this mill’s existence since the beginning,” the owner says as he relaxes in the garden beside the granary, which is among the facility’s collection of buildings along with the mill, icehouse, miller’s house, and smokehouse. “It’s a wonderful institution to be associated with.”
While it may not hold the importance to the community that it once did, Readyville Mill is now enjoying a resurgence unlike anything in its fabled past. The former owner of a candle company, Tomm purchased the mill in 2006, restored it, added a restaurant — The Readyville Eatery — and opened it to the public in April 2011. Though it only operates for breakfast and tours on Saturday mornings, thousands have nonetheless visited the Eatery and mill over the past 15 months.
“I just love the atmosphere — it’s a step back in time,” says Jan Girard, an Anchorage, Alaska, resident and Cannon County native, as she strolls the grounds with her sisters, Kathryn Freeze and Joy Lowe. “We came here when we were little to get flour and cornmeal, and it brings back memories of my father and brothers. It’s wonderful to see it restored.”
By all accounts, Jan is not alone in her assessment. Because of the demand for Eatery breakfasts, call-ahead seating is usually required, thanks largely to chef Margo Riser’s whole wheat pancakes, biscuits, and grits made with organic Tennessee grains produced by Robertson Cheatham Farmers Cooperative member Alfred Farris and ground on site.
After dining and listening to live music in what was originally an ice-processing facility, visitors can choose from a variety of packaged flours, meals, grits, and other goodies or simply take a stroll around the grounds, which are extensively landscaped with native Tennessee flora.
With its booming popularity, it’s difficult to imagine that Readyville Mill — the first and largest gristmill in the area — had nearly faded from the collective memory of Middle Tennesseans prior to 2011. Closed since the late 1970s, the buildings were being reclaimed by the elements, with each high wind peeling back a little more tin roof and every heavy rain invading the broken widows and washing more of Cannon County’s history into Stones River, once the source of the mill’s formidable energy.
Before Tomm, a Bell Buckle resident, first visited the site at the suggestion of a friend, he had never been to Readyville or heard of the mill. As he explored the overgrown, six-acre property in search of discarded millstones, Tomm was struck by the architecture of the millhouse and still-solid “bones” of the buildings. Like Rat a century before, Tomm had an idea. For a candle-maker with no background in carpentry, it was improbable at best.
“I decided to bring the place back to life and do the work myself,” Tomm says with a wide grin, adding that he relied on skills he learned from his high school ag teacher in Texas. “Everybody I know thought I’d lost my mind, but I had recently sold my previous business, retired at age 42, and needed something to do. When I looked at the mill, I saw potential, and I thought [restoring it] would be a worthwhile project.”
After purchasing the property from its Nashville-based owner, Tomm began his “adventure” by digging into the mill’s rich history. He learned that it was built in 1812 by Charles Ready, one of Cannon County’s first settlers, over an excavated mill pond in a bend of Stones River. The mill ground the community’s flour and meal for the next 30 years — a respectable lifetime for many similar operations.
But Readyville Mill was just getting started.
In 1842, Charles, now a prominent businessman, built a new millhouse on the spot where the current structure is located and commissioned a channel or mill “race” to be dug from a dammed portion of the river approximately 1/4-mile upstream. With more concentrated water power at hand, Charles then installed an “undershot” water wheel — turned by the flow of water at its base rather than over the top — to improve efficiency. The enhancements undoubtedly attracted more business and settlers to the area.
“As you would expect by its name, the town of Readyville essentially formed around the mill as time went by,” says Tomm. “It was a thriving operation and might have continued without interruption were it not for the Civil War.”
As with many businesses in Middle Tennessee — where Union and Confederacy loyalties were often divided — suspicions about the mill, a community gathering spot, led to its destruction. It’s unclear, Tomm says, which side is responsible, but the mill was nonetheless burned to the ground. Within five years, though, it was rebuilt, and by the mid-1870s, Readyville Mill and more than 850 other gristmills were operating in Tennessee.
“Gristmills were the basis of commerce in those days,” Tomm points out. “Towns couldn’t survive without them.”
By the 1890s, Readyville Mill, which by then included a sawmill, had passed into Rat McFerrin’s ingenious hands. With his newfangled electricity (and trained chickens), Rat added the icehouse around the turn of the century, providing yet another valuable service to the community that would continue for another 50 years.
Readyville native Irving Stroup recalls frequent visits to the mill’s icehouse in his father’s Model-T Ford in the 1930s.
“They had a big saw they’d use to cut 300-pound blocks of ice,” says Irving, 87, now a Murfreesboro resident. “They would saw it up right there on the street, and us kids would eat the shavings. There was no flavoring, but it was a treat just the same.”
As a teenager, dental problems necessitated Irving’s employment at the mill’s granary for one memorable week.
“I spent the whole time cleaning grain bags and inspecting them for rat holes,” Irving says with a chuckle. “At the end of the week, I was able to go have two teeth pulled with the money I earned from the mill.”
As the 20th century aged, more and more gristmills closed as supermarkets came into fashion and the range and efficiency of automobiles increased. By the 1970s, nearly every mill in the state had ceased operation — with one notable exception.
“I guess people couldn’t bear to see Readyville Mill go away,” Tomm theorizes. “A man named Leslie Justice and his son, Paul, owned the mill for about 40 years, through about 1970, before selling it. In the mid-70s, it changed hands again and became sort of a hippie commune, but they still ground meal. These folks had a school bus with all but the driver’s seat removed and a hole cut in the top. They’d drive to a wheat silo in Kansas, fill the bus up, and drive it back.”
The times finally caught up to the mill, and the operation shut down in 1979. Although the task of successfully renovating it would eventually fall to Tomm, other individuals and groups attempted to purchase and revive the facility throughout the ensuing years.
“The [Readyville] community actually pulled together an organization some years ago to try to buy it, but it didn’t work out,” says Irving. “I think everybody around here is glad to see Tomm purchase and renovate it.”
Tomm spent five years leveling, siding, flooring, roofing, and painting the five structures of Readyville Mill before it was ready to accept visitors. Although he has no plans to open the restaurant for additional days or meals, Tomm has one major goal left for the mill: repair the mill race.
“Some years ago, the dam was damaged by vandals and the water ceased to flow into the mill race,” he explains. “Although we’re using turn-of-the-century stone mills to grind our corn, they are powered by electric motors. I’ve been talking to the state for more than four years to have the dam repaired so we can power the mill by water as was intended. We’ve had state senators, representatives, and even [then-Tennessee Ag Commissioner] Ken Givens here to look at the operation, and I’m hopeful the project will someday be funded.”
In the meantime, Tomm adds, he will continue to help Readyville Mill add to its remarkable timeline.
“Not many businesses can say they’ve survived for 200 years,” he says. “I’m sure ol’ Charles Ready and Rat McFerrin would be amazed but proud!”
To learn more about Readyville Mill, visit online at www.readyvillemill.com. To make breakfast reservations at The Readyville Eatery, call 615-563-6455. The Eatery and mill are open Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|