Built in 1886, Mingus Mill served nearby farmers for 50 years as they brought corn and wheat for milling, with the miller usually taking a toll of one-eighth of the grain. Everyone ate cornmeal, sometimes two and three times a day, and the mill became the largest gristmill in the Smokies. Its stone was turned by a water-powered cast-iron turbine fed by water pressure built up in the penstock at the end of the 200-foot-long wooden flume, generating 11 horsepower, enough to run all the mill's machinery. On the second floor, a smut machine blew wheat grain free of debris, and the bolting chest separated ground wheat into grades by sifting it through fine to coarse bolts of cloth. As early as the 1820s, more progressive millers began using turbines instead of waterwheels, and in the 1930s the Mingus family sold the mill to the National Park Service.