For nearly 200 years, people have come to The Old Mill for stone-ground flour, meal, and conversation. Long ago, Cherokee Indians named this rippling stream the Little Pigeon River. In 1781, just after the American Revolution, Colonel Samuel Wear, leading American patriots, crossed the mountains from Virginia and built a small fort. Within a few years, other settlers arrived to claim lands along the river, and a small community began to grow. Early 19th-century accounts describe a busy scene of rough-hewn buildings anchored by a massive, smoking iron forge and, soon, a water-powered grist mill. Wagons arrived laden with iron ore, corn, and wheat, and departed with freshly ground grain, cast-iron farm tools and cooking pots, imported luxuries such as sugar, and the latest news and gossip. In 21st-century Pigeon Forge, The Old Mill buildings survive as the historic gathering place and commercial hub of a pre-electric, pre-automobile, pre-internet world, and, just like 150 years ago, remain essential to this community as daily bread.