In the fall of 1851, three Mills brothers headed west, one by water, one by land, and one to Texas. Joel Mills, his wife Kitura Burke Bird, and their family came from Henderson County, Tennessee, to Sevier County, now known as Little River County. While operating Mills Ferry on the south bank of the Little River, Joel Mills constructed a cypress log cabin on top of Red Hill. The log cabin was later disassembled and made into a corncrib. Those cypress logs were preserved from that corncrib and reassembled into the log cabin. The original pioneer's son was S.S.P. Mills, and his grandson Joel Mills built the red brick store across the highway in 1912.