Town Retrospective: The Mill

The roads were muddy when it rained; Stroubles Creek was power when it turned the wheel, and the men inside were laborers when the Mill was just that in times past.

the Mill ca. 1939

The Mill from College Avenue present day. Photo by Christina O'Connor 2008

Walking through the River Mill Map Company, next to the brick walls bordering the twin dart lanes, you can see where development made its mark on the old building years ago. Windows rudely bricked up with mortar signify a time when Bollo’s coffee shop that stands next door was an empty lot, and the roller mill that once thrived here still turned great wheels pulverizing grain into meal and flour. A few feet away, a large, incongruous square on the floor marks the spot where a chute once led to the waters of Strouble’s Creek streaming below. Over the booths adjacent the back wall of the pool table room, two mismatched bricks set oddly into the wall indicate the place where a great paddle wheel once turned on its axis, powered by a creek crooked by human ingenuity. Under the building’s foundation, a hidden smile on the present landscape of this old town, the creek meanders westward feeding VA Tech’s Duck Pond before pouring into the New River.

In the 1890’s, near the turn of the century, the three–and–a–half–story roller mill was first home to the Blacksburg Milling and Supply Company. Its massive timbers, vertical supports rising out of the concrete floor and stretching overhead, are signature of an architectural design that has mostly gone the way of horse drawn buggies and whooping cough. Back then the roads were still made of dirt and Henry Ford was still developing the early prototypes of the Model T. It was merely thirty years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land–Grant College Act, thus facilitating the foundation of VA Tech, and nearly thirty years before the stately Lyric Theater would change the rustic look of College Avenue forever. In the years since its original purpose became obsolete, the Old Mill Building, with its brick walls and heavy timber frame, has housed numerous businesses and tenants.

Blacksburg Milling and Supply Company eventually became Reliance, and a few decades ago a jeweler’s shop occupied what is now Gillie’s restaurant. During the mid–1980’s, Souvlaki’s, the little Greek diner that sits on the corner across the street, crammed its entirety into what is now the Rivermill’s kitchen. At the same time two bookstores, Books, Strings and Things and The Book Smith, occupied what is now the bar’s dining and pool area. Today, apartments, a bar, coffee shop, and an ice cream parlor turned vegetarian restaurant fill the three–and–a–half stories.

the Mill ca. 1939

The Mill from what is now the Red Cross parking lot present day. Photo by Christina O'Connor 2008

Though its current tenants are hosts to great food and nights filled with enough spirits and fuzzy memories to last a lifetime, no one place could embody the roots of this old town like the roller mill itself, its surviving timbers and bricked windows hinting at a wealth of details of this small town’s rich history.