The Dorn Mill became a symbol of the Dorn family's influence in the McCormick region. It stood on land previously owned by Gold Mine "Billy" Dorn and Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the reaper. McCormick influenced the location of the railroad and in 1881 donated 40 acres of land for a town, which by 1883 had a population of 200 people and centered economically on cotton gins and shipping. In 1898, the McCormicks conveyed this portion of land to the railroad for construction of a steam-powered cotton seed oil mill and cotton gin. After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, the South became dependent on a one-crop cotton economy, and with the developing railroad system and the introduction of textile manufacturing in the 1880s, the growth, milling, and shipping of cotton products continued to dominate. Cottonseed, once seen as having little value beyond livestock feed, gained commercial importance through products such as seed hulls for stock feed or fuel, linters for mattress and pillow stuffing, and crude seed oil refined as edible oil. By the time the mill was transformed into a highly engineered steam-powered plant, the energy-saving methods pioneered by Oliver Evans in 1795 were widely used, moving corn and wheat through the milling process by cups and belts vertically and screw conveyors horizontally. The plant required only two employees, one to power the boilers and engines and the other to run the mill, while a related lumberyard owned by M.G. and J.J. Dorn across the tracks to the northeast supplied sawdust and shavings as fuel for the steam plants. When milling production ceased in the 1940s, the steam engines continued to power the cotton gin into the 1950s. As planters paid little attention to land conservation, soil productivity declined, and in 1919 the boll weevil brought another serious problem. In response to the destruction of the main money crop, farmers turned toward crop diversification and livestock production, and in the early 1920s M.G. and J.J. Dorn, great-nephews of "Billy" Dorn, converted the mill to produce meal, flour, and animal feed.