Alfred Reagan Mill Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Alfred Reagan grist mill was probably built around 1900. We must assume the builder was Alfred Reagan. The grist mill was a turbine or “tub” mill, the most common type found in the mountains. Water was channeled to strike a primitive horizontal wooden turbine wheel, which turned and provided direct drive power to the mill stones.

The only unusual feature known about the mill is that it had a hand-powered, homemade bolting machine. Apparently some wheat was ground there, and the bolting machine was needed to remove the chaff and separate the ground wheat into different grades. Herb Clabo recalls that Reagan’s mill toll was one gallon to the bushel of corn.

This was not the only mill on Roaring Fork, but according to Wesley Reagan, it was so well constructed that it would operate when other mills were shut down due to lack of water. Wesley credited this to a special type of small vaned turbine wheel constructed by his father. One of the other mills on Roaring Fork was owned by Alfred’s brother, Aaron, and was located a short distance downstream. Aside from grinding his own corn, Alfred was able to “pick up a few extra gallons of meal a week as toll.”

Where it is:

The Alfred Reagan Tub Mill is located on the Roaring Fork Motor Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

To access Roaring Fork, turn off the main parkway in Gatlinburg, TN at traffic light #8 and follow Historic Nature Trail Road to the Cherokee Orchard entrance to the national park. Just beyond the Rainbow Falls trailhead you have the option of taking the one-way Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail (closed in winter). Please note that buses, trailers, and motor homes are not permitted on the motor nature trail. This is a 5.5-mile-long, one-way, loop road.

The mill is located just inches from the road.

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