In 1790, Benjamin Darrow began operating a cotton gin and grist mill along Sycamore Creek. In 1835, on the site of the old Darrow Mill, Robert and Edward Cheatham and Samuel Watson erected a powder mill that operated until the fall of Fort Donelson during the Civil War. The first Cheatham County Court was held here in 1856. The DuPont Co. acquired an interest in the mill in 1873, and it continued to operate until 1904.