Jake Sitton built this mill in 1836 and operated it for a number of years. Edward Price cut the building material on Sand Mountain, and pure pine lumber was hauled to the site by wagon with tar-lubricated axles and drawn by oxen. The miller was Matthew Mashburn. In September 1863, the Federal army occupied the mill south of Trenton and called it Payne's Mill rather than the better known Sitton's Mill, possibly because a younger man named Payne may have been operating it, or because it may have been connected to the Empire Iron Works farther up Lookout Creek and used under Confederate government authority as a support facility. On September 4, 1863, General James Negley sent a detachment to find a centrally located mill to grind grain for the army, and the next morning Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Blakely led the 78th Pennsylvania Regiment to a mill on Lookout Creek filled with wheat, corn, and rye. Captain Marlin of Company A was left in charge while the soldiers ground all the grain there, gathered and ground more grain from Lookout Valley, and turned the product over to the passing army, while also collecting cattle fit for beef but leaving each family enough for support. The Pennsylvania troops complained about the duty, and General George Thomas replaced them with King's Brigade from Reynolds' division, which had been camped at Trenton. Some soldiers remained behind as the army crossed Lookout Mountain, and after the Battle of Chickamauga, Blakely wrote that sixteen men at the mill were too sick to march, so Private W. S. Hosack of Company G, whom he called an excellent physician, stayed with them with tents, supplies, and medicine; because nothing more had been heard from them, he supposed they had been captured, and he added that the mill's location was very unhealthy and caused much sickness.

Photo: Duane and Tracy Marsteller