The Fayette County Historical Society invites you to come to its annual meeting at Starr’s Mill September 29.
The meeting will begin at 3 p.m. You don’t have to be a member to come but just be sure you bring a chair.
Rain or shine there will be a meeting either inside the mill or outside on its grounds.
Local lifetime resident of Starr’s Mill and first president of the historical society in 1972, Bobby Kerlin, will be the speaker.
The first mill on this site was in 1824 and the current mill building dates from 1902.
One of the formers owners, Hilliard M. Starr, owned the mill about 1860 and it has been his name that it has been called ever since.
Also of historic interest is two stone walls in Whitewater Creek and near the current dam that were constructed by the Creek Indians in the late 1700s.
They are fashioned with V-shaped cutouts and were used to catch fish.
While the mill was always used to ground grains such as corn meal, there was a gin house built in the mid 1940s to gin cotton. It was on the east side of the dam and in 1955 was blown down.
The mill ceased operation about 1959 and the mill and a few surrounding acre’s was purchased by the Fayette County Water Department.
They built a pumping station close by and fashioned the building to look similar to the old mill building.
Each October the students from Starr’s Mill Middle School walk down to the mill site where parents greet them with orange juice and biscuits.
They are treated to a lecture on the mill and reminded that scenes from “Sweet Home Alabama” were filmed inside. The movie studio put in flooring and walls to film and graciously left the upgrade in place when they left town.
