The attractive white 1920s mill situated on park property near the country store is the second of its kind in the area. The first was built 75 feet upstream in the late 1700s by the Warthen family who had acquired the land through grants for their part in the Revolutionary War. With the now extinct Georgetown just down stream, the mill did well in its early years.
Eventually the property landed in the hands of the Gilmore brothers who built the current mill, dam and cotton gin in 1921 and 1922. The mill operated until the mid 1940s and from that point, it was used as store house until it was purchased by the state in 1968.
In recent years, it has been lovingly restored and maintained and provides a first hand look into Georgia’s agricultural history which sustained local land owners for generations.
Wiping the sweat lightly beading his brow, Hamburg State Park Manager Daniel Hill pointed toward the forest around us. “Wherever you see pine trees, this was all corn and cotton,” he said as he motioned to majestic pines towering above.
It was hard to imagine that just over 85 years ago, the soil crunching beneath the soles of Daniel’s boots as he walked toward the mill was fertile and heavy with crops. 
“These are different scrapes attached to horse drawn plows,” he said indicating the row of well worn early farm equipment along one wall inside Hamburg Mill. Cotton planters, fertilizer distributors and the like at one time pulled by horses or oxen across the dusty land stood resting happily nearby.
On the opposite side of the large room cooled only by a cross breeze through huge open doors, early machinery used in cotton or corn mills sat idle for museum patrons to investigate. In the days when cotton was king, the mill standing on the banks of Hamburg Lake was used to process cotton from wagon to bale.
A flue running across the ceiling carried the cotton in. Cotton farmers would bring horse drawn wagons under the outside porch and toss raw cotton into the hopper above. The cotton would be sucked in through blowers and then processed.
“We don’t have any early diagrams on how things were set up, but the main shaft would turn under water power from the dam and was hooked up to several belts,” Daniel explained as he walked past distinct styles of early cotton gins.
“Cotton was separated from the seeds through a cotton seed cleaner which got rid of loose bits of lint,” he said. Seeds would then go through a blower and into chutes which emptied into the adjacent building functioning as a storehouse. Pointing to a tin contraption, he indicated that it was used to boil the cotton seeds themselves which was then used for oil and animal feed.
Motioning to a large octagonal patched area on the floor, Daniel explained that the cotton press was most likely in that particular area. It was a large screw assembly that would compress the cotton and bale it into about 50- to 100-pound bails. From there it was heaved on wagons underneath the building and taken off to market. From door to bale, he was unsure of how long the entire process took. Records for the mill were not adequately kept or passed on from owner to owner.
Moving through the museum and into a much cooler breezeway connecting the old cotton gin with the grist mill, Daniel paused a moment to unlock a heavy door that opened into a well maintained prep room complete with charts and drawings depicting the grist mill operation from top to bottom.
Old black and white photographs hanging on the wall portray the building of the present day dam and foundation while the older mill sat idle in the blurred background. Looking closely, Daniel pointed out where the old foundation and slush way ran just up stream.
“It’s interesting how well water preserves things,” Daniel comments. “When we had the lake drawn down recently to replace the old wooden gates with metal, that stump was still there,” he said indicating a spot on the photograph. As the water rises, oxygen can’t get to the wood to rot it out.
When people think about grist mills, an idyllic vision of a charming overshot water wheel comes to mind. The Hamburg Mill uses a turbine that can produce about 50-hp which was substantial for its day considering the first Model T’s were lumbering down country roads.
On the wall hangs a diagram indicating how the turbine actually works. A large chamber sits behind the dam wall containing the turbine and raising the gate fills the chamber to lake level. A control wheel above the turbine opens up the veins channeling water through the turbine turning the main shaft which is connected to pulleys and ultimately to the stones themselves.
Grinding grain in the mill not only provided cornmeal and at one point wheat into flour, it was a way of life for many locals. Today the mill is used for demonstrations and during special park events. Wheat is no longer ground because wheat dust is highly explosive, but fresh ground cornmeal products can be purchased in the Country Store at the park.
Farmers used to haul corn dried in the fields and still on the cob by horse and buggy to the mill. Early models of corn shellers were either hand-cranked or water powered through pulleys. Whole ears would go in the sheller and process kernels from the cob sifting shelled corn through the machine and into a bucket, basket or sack beneath it.
One of the first models of corn shellers is housed in the museum and was made in Joliet, Illinois. It has wooden pulleys which is one of the indicators of its age. Wood was used before mass production of metal pulleys as the machinery advanced.
Passing through another door, the business end of the operation stands ready to roll.
“Basically everything on this side of the stone is just to clean the corn before it gets up to the stone,” Daniel explained once again wiping his brow in the afternoon heat. Although originally the mill would grind corn from local farmers, for demonstration purposes Daniel and his team grind food grade white and yellow corn purchased near Athens.
Dried kernels are poured through a large hopper on the first floor, through a screen and into diagonal chute under the floor. The grain is then picked up by little buckets on a boxed in belt and lifted to the third floor where it’s dumped into another hopper, through another screen, and back down to the first floor where a fan blows the chaff and any light material away. The corn falls through another screen, is picked up by another bucket belt and carried back to the third floor where it is transferred to another chute that falls directly above the stone.
On a platform independent of the building itself, three huge stones and their assemblies lay disassembled after being cleaned and prepared for the next grinding.
“It’s interesting how it’s constructed,” Daniel commented. “The platform where the stones lie is completely independent of the rest of the building itself and can move independently from the building. The reason for that is these stones can become unbalanced over time. A lot of the old mills of the 1800 era would literally grind themselves apart because of all of the vibration and literally loosen all the fittings. We’ve been real fortunate to be able to figure out how to get everything back in line,” he finished.
In the Hamburg Mill, the peg and hole design was used to bind the timbers together. It was a lot cheaper, wood on wood won’t abrade like wood on metal, and it lent a stronger connection.
To set up for grinding, a millstone crane moves the top stone on the spindle and a round wooden box sits on top of whole assembly. A wooden chute folds down into the hopper. Above the stone is the shaker box chute which feeds corn to the stone.
“It’s an ingenious design because after everything’s adjusted, it will regulate itself as far as the speed goes,” Daniel said with a hint of pride in his voice. “If it speeds up, it will feed more corn in and slow down. As it slows down, less corn will fall in. It regulates itself to an extent.”
The stones have u-shaped grooves which are cut in at an angle and turn up. The opposite pattern is on top stone creating a scissor-like action trapping the grain between them. There are fewer grooves as you go in toward the center of the stone, but they’re deeper so as kernels fall in they are quickly broken up. The stone pattern works the grain farther out grinding it more finely along the way. Eventually, it gets trapped between the rotating top stone and the box and the rotation of the stone runs the meal out into the chute and into the hopper for bagging in 2- or 5-pound bags.
The mill was primarily set up to grind white corn, yellow corn and wheat flour under original water power. A wheel next to the stone raises and lowers the spindle connected to the top stone to adjust for texture of the mill.
“We want to get it as fine as possible,” Daniel explains, “but some people like theirs real course. We can adjust it that way.”
If a miller gets the stones too close together, there a possibility of too much friction. The result can be scorched meal. Daniel knows there’s a definite scent to hot stones. When grinding, it pays to keep your nose to the grindstone in order to make sure everything is running right.
As the meal is ground, it is bagged, weighed and packaged for sale in the Country Store at the park and at a convenience store up the road in Warthen.
“It’s a blast,” Daniel exclaims with sincerity. “It’s one of those things, you’re working at it and you say, ‘Man, I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this!’”
(Daniel Hill and Kay Clarke, park employees. Miss Kay grew up at Hamburg when it was farmland and worked in the general store she still manages on park property.)
Walking back toward the Country Store where his office is located, Daniel hesitates thoughtfully as he begins, “Most places it’s a historic site, just something to look at. This place comes alive. When you turn everything on and you have everything when it just clicks, then you’re there. You’re back there when everything’s going the way it always used to go. Someone walking in today would hear, see and smell everything they would if they were walking in during the 1920s. That’s the real cool part about it, it’s living history at its best, I think.”
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