The Cable Mill

by Jurgen Lorenzen

Title

The Cable Mill

Artist

Jurgen Lorenzen

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

The Cable Mill which was built by John Cable in 1867, is one of the most popular landmarks in Cades Cove located in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park near Townsend, Tennessee.
In the late 1800s, this mill provided homesteads with a place to turn corn or wheat into flour for making bread. In addition to converting grains into flour, the mill was used to mill lumber. In fact, the farmhouse a brief walk away was made out of lumber cut on this very mill.
The mechanics of the eleven foot tall wheel were well designed, but simple. The large water wheel that drives the grist mill is an overshot mill – this simply means that the fast-flowing mountain streams strikes the top of the wheel. This design is much more efficient than an undershot wheel that is driven by water flowing past the bottom of the wheel.
As the wheel turns, it drives a runner stone that turns. There is a very small gap between the runner stone and the stationary stone below and the corn or grain is fed into this area from a gravity-fed hopper. The miller, which was quite skilled in his trade, could position the corn or grain at a certain spot on the stone to achieve the desired fineness of the cut.
The stones on the John Cable Grist Mill are the original stones and have been in use for 150 years! Although at one time there were seven operating mills in Cades Cove, the only remnants of the other mills are the millstones outside of Cable Mill.

Uploaded

March 25th, 2023

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