The Newsom family came to Tennessee from Virginia in the late 1700s and settled and developed the area known as Newsom's Station sometime between 1796 and 1800. William Newsom built the original mill slightly upstream from the existing one, but a flood completely destroyed it in 1808. Joseph Morton Newsom, William Newsom's son, built the present limestone mill in 1862 using stone from the family quarry about one mile south on the family's 1,780 acre plantation, with hand-dressed blocks marked in Roman numerals, laid without mortar, cypress used for the third floor and roof, and poplar timbers supporting the machinery. Joseph Newsom had also built a limestone mansion on the property in 1858 called Harpeth Heights, finished with fine stucco mixed with horse hair imported from Europe, but the home site was demolished in the early 1960s during construction of Interstate 40. Originally a grist mill, the mill operated with a side shot water wheel inside the building, where water entered through a controlled opening in the north wall, turned the blades, and exited through a round hole in the dam abutment, while farmers brought corn or wheat to be weighed and ground into flour, with the miller's fee taken as a small percentage of the grain and then sold commercially or made into liquor at a nearby distillery. With the mill's presence, the surrounding community became a hub of activity with a post office, general store, train depot, and perhaps a distillery. The property, home, and mill remained in the Newsom family until 1905, when James Ezzell purchased them, and from 1907 to 1911 he extensively remodeled the mill, reconstructed the dam, and added turbines to generate electricity for the quarry, rock crusher, and his home. The quarry supplied stone for Nashville buildings including Hume-Fogg High School, Union Station, and the wall around the City Cemetery, and during dam work in 1907 workers found a skeleton with a pitchfork through the body, which Mrs Matt Dobson, James Ezzell's daughter, later recalled was thought to be an escaped penitentiary inmate who either drowned or was struck by the pitchfork. Because of its proximity to the railroad, the mill also became a popular recreation spot, and as late as the 1920s people came from Nashville and nearby towns to picnic and swim. James Ezzell retired in 1928 after a fire destroyed the quarry's buildings and equipment, the State of Tennessee bought the land in 1974 to create the park, and the mill endured the record flood of May 2010 with only one or two stone blocks moved despite being completely submerged.