Sutton Mill is located near Clarksville Georgia and is the only Mill of this configuration I have ever seen. First you should know that a very dear friend Dave Ramsey took me out to see this one day as I was making my sales/service call at his store.

Note that the wheel is out front of the building in line with the creek. To be able to turn this wheel look at the large pipe that goes up the creek on the far bank. This pipe went up the hill along side the creek to a small dam located above the level of the spill pipe. Water was diverted into the pipe at the dame and the pipe remained full.

Now back down to where the pipe turns and goes up in front of the mill the larger section of pipe had a lever in the far side that opened the gate to allow water to seek its own level spilling out on the wheel and setting in motion the belts that ran from the wheel to under the mill. Now we had a working Grist Mill of some size.

Because of the pipe and the size of it I don’t think Sutton Mill is that old. It has a grand setting in this Northeast Georgia town of Clarksville but has remained closed and boarded up for some time. Because of the time period it must have been in operation when other more efficient ways to mill corn were coming on line in the American industry profile. Even though it may not be very old I like it for the uniqueness of the engineering here.