A cool breeze is blowing down the river, and the mountain laurel is blooming below the old mill. The constant splashing roar created by the towering flow of clear water rushing over a six-story ledge mixes with the slap of belts driving the millstones and the squeak of metal needing a spot of grease. An earthy yeast smell wafts on the breeze with light clouds of dust from ground corn.
Trace the rugged chain of the Appalachian Mountains down through the foothills and then across Alabama until it is only a line of small hills in East-Central Mississippi, and there in the edge of Lauderdale County, you could have seen, smelled, and heard this experience at Dunn’s Falls from around 1860 on through the early 1900s. This scenic waterfall and historic grist mill can still be visited and enjoyed today, absent the metallic squeak and the slap of the mill belts that are now silent in the idled mill.
Dunn’s Falls, above the Chunky River in Enterprise, Mississippi, is an example of a treasure enhanced by man. In 1854, a young Irish immigrant named John Dunn rode his horse into the shallow bed of the Chunky River just north of Enterprise. He stated that this was the most beautiful spot he had seen in America. After acquiring the land, Dunn built a dam, redirecting the stream over the bluff creating the waterfall and a source of waterpower. In 1860, he constructed a three-story frame building to house a water-powered cotton factory. The machinery for the mill had been delivered to the Enterprise railroad station when the War Between the States was declared. The Confederate government confiscated Dunn’s buildings and machinery. The mill was not closed, but was used to manufacture knives, hats, and blankets. Dunn was named supervisor of these operations. It was during the war that a building was added which housed a blacksmith shop, a distillery, and machinery for carding wool used to make soldiers’ clothing. After the war, the mill was retooled as a grist mill for grinding grain to flour and corn meal.
There were several other grist mills in this part of Mississippi, but this was a particularly impressive one, and one that was important to many area farmers through the early 1900s. It was an event when subsistence and production farmers came to the mill to have their grain ground to meal; and in this part of Mississippi, corn meal was more common than wheat flour. The farmers would take sacks of corn to the mill for grinding and often, the entire family put on their good clothes to take the grain to the mill. While it was grinding, there was a chance to renew old acquaintances and find out about other farmer’s crops.
John Dunn’s mill traded hands several times before falling into disrepair and slipping down the bluff into the river below. In 1987, the Richardson & Carroll Mill built in 1857 in Cave Springs, Georgia was disassembled and rebuilt at Dunn’s Falls where it stands today.
