Glade Creek Grist Mill, Babcock State Park, West Virginia, USA.

  
   
 
 
 
 


What is grist?

Grist is grain that has been separated from its chaff and is ready for milling. It can also mean grain that has already been ground at a grist mill. This particular grist mill is Glade Creek Grist Mill in Babcock State Park, West Virginia, USA. You can see it working in the video right.

 
 
 
       

The off-grid mills are disappearing fast?

  
   
 

At the end of the 19th century there were more than 500 operational grist mills in West Virginia, USA. Now most of them have either vanished back to the environment or are idle beside the rushing streams that once powered them. Glade Creek Grist Mill is younger than it looks although its mechanism and building structure are authentic. It's a combination of parts saved from three other mills that were beyond repair. It was built in 1976 as a replacement to Cooper's Mill which ground grain on Glade Creek many years before.

The basic structure of the mill came from the Stoney Creek Grist Mill which dates back to 1890. It was dismantled and moved piece by piece to Babcock from a spot near Campbelltown in Pocahontas County. After an accidental fire destroyed the Spring Run Grist Mill near Petersburg, Grant County, only the overshot water wheel could be salvaged. Other parts for the mill came from the Onego Grist Mill near Seneca Rocks in Pendleton County. Glade Creek Grist Mill provides freshly ground cornmeal which park guests may purchase depending on availability and stream conditions. Visitors to the mill may journey back to the time when grinding grain by a rushing stream was a way of life.