From the late 1800s to the mid-1960s, Mount Airy was a busy farming community where the B&O Railroad carried commodities from town to market and brought needed manufactured goods into town. A grain mill was one of the centers of commerce, where local farmers delivered grain to be ground into flour and feed before trains carried the grain to markets in Baltimore and other cities. Runkles' Mill, one of the first mills built alongside the tracks in Mount Airy, stood on this site until it was destroyed in the fire of 1914. The Mount Airy Milling Company was built in its place and was destroyed by fire in 1967. The grain silos behind the F&M Bank were demolished in 1978, and both mills were located on this site.