Challenges

Operating the mill was never easy, and Ed Mabry faced special challenges because the running water that turned the overshot wheel and powered all the equipment was barely adequate. To increase the supply, Mabry built separate flumes, or wooden troughs, to catch runoff from two small streams, and these fed into the single trough called a race. In later years, Mabry's health failed and he stopped maintaining the water wheel and flumes, so to furnish power for the mill he bought an 8-horsepower engine and his wife Lizzie took over mill operations. By the time Ed Mabry died and Lizzie moved away in the mid-1930s, gristmills were becoming obsolete as larger roller mills and national companies marketing flour and other grain products in stores across America replaced the local gristmill.

Virginia · United States