About 1883, Green Barnes used a narrow gauge railroad with mule-drawn hopper cars to build a dam on the headwaters of Mill Creek, creating a 300-acre pond that soon came into the possession of his son-in-law, Welcome Amos Akins. Amos Akins built the mill house in 1907 and opened a pavilion in 1910 for dances and public gatherings, lighted by one of the first Delco light plants in the area. The pond became a popular swimming place, and local churches held baptisms in its waters. Water released from the pond turned a large turbine that powered the mill, whose top millstone weighed one ton and could be adjusted to grind corn into fine or coarse particles. The mill ground grain, ginned cotton, and sawed timber, with Tuesdays and Saturdays set aside as grinding days. Its stones produced grits, meal, and chicken feed, and its gin could clean a bale of short staple cotton in an hour or four bales of long staple Sea Island cotton in a day. It ginned its last bale of cotton in 1930, and over time the area also gained a second saw mill, a turpentine still, and a community store. After Amos Akins died in 1945, his son Fred M. Akins operated the mill until 1948. The families connected with the pond were among the oldest in Bulloch County. Green Berry Barnes, born in 1838, was a former Confederate soldier in the 9th Ga. Regt. who was severely wounded at the Battle of 2nd Manassas in 1862 and sent home as an invalid; he married Missouri Beasley in March 1865. Their daughter Missouri Magnolia "Maggie" Barnes married Welcome Amos Akins in 1901. Amos Akins, son of William Robert Akins and Francis Hart, was a master farmer recognized for progressive farming methods and operated the mill until his death in 1945. His son Fred Morgan Akins, who later married Rubye Clyde Deal, operated the mill until 1948. Their son Paul S. Akins, an engineer, converted the old mill into a private residence, and other old Bulloch County families associated with the mill included the Edenfields, Cannons, and Mallards.