CADES COVE’S CABLE MILL

By Dick Byrd corrspondent The Daily Times
In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park there is a beautiful cove that once was the home to a pioneer community of farmers, families and homespun industry.  Cades Cove is now one of the most visited places in the national park, with its log cabins, barns, old churches, open fields, wildlife, creeks, trails, vistas, a big campground and a shaded picnic ground.  You can drive through the cove on a one-way paved road in your car or on your bicycle. 
One of the special places in Cades Cove is an operating gristmill.  Daily from April through October is grinds corn for you to watch and for you to purchase.  It is operated by The Great Smoky Mountain Association.  Here’s what volunteer miller Gary Haaby says about running the mill:   “You’d bring me your corn and your wheat and I’d turn them into flour so you could make your bread.  No grocery stores in the good ol’ days.  In summertime when it’s hot weather I’d be seeing you down here two or three times a month.  You just mill it as you need it.  No refrigerator, freezer or Ziploc bags.”
Haaby is a retired school teacher.  He lives in nearby Townsend, Tennessee and volunteers as one of the millers.
This is how Haaby talks about the mill:
“Back a hundred years ago you’d see six or seven of these mills.  There were about 700 people living in the cove.  The mill has been here for 143 years.  It usually ran on Saturdays.  And the miller’s gona get paid.  I’m gona take an eighth of your corn and a sixth of your wheat.  And you’ve got to tell me what you want to do with it.  I can do it fine, course, cracked…whatever you want.  In summertime you’d want it courser because it keeps better that way.”
“You’d bring your shelled corn in to me.  I don’t shell corn.  That’s something you’re kids’ll be doing at home.  That’s why we had kids.  I’m gona drop it in the hopper.  It’s all gravity fed.  Gristmills…all mills are going to be tall buildings because they run on gravity.  Inside there is a millstone called a runner stone.  And below that is called a bed stone and that’s stationary.  The corn is cut between the stones, which don’t touch.  Corn goes between the stones and falls into grooves.  Some of that corn is sticking up out of the grooves so the top stone shears it off.  And the grooves get shallower toward the edges so the farther out it goes the finer it cuts.”
The miller says every four or five years the stones come out and are sharpened.  These stones have been on the mill for its entire 143 year life.  Outside are more millstones.  They came from nearby mills.  The only mill out of 6 or 7 once in the cove is this Cable Mill, rebuilt by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the early 1930’s.  Now it operates for all to see.
One visitor recent visitor from Illinois said he has been bringing his family to The Smokies since 1998 but this was his first look at Cable Mill. He said: “I’ve been a welder for 23 years and to go back a hundred and 43 years…the people were a lot more clever and resourceful than we give them credit.”
Miller Haaby says he gets a lot of crazy questions.  “They think the mill is a water treatment facility.  The think it’s a way to clean water.  But that’s fine.  That’s why we’re here.  Most folks that come in want to know how it works.  But I try to make sure they know what it’s for before they know how it works because that’s the key to it.”  He also points out that besides grinding corn and wheat the mill was used to mill lumber.  Haaby says the timbers in the nearby farmhouse were cut at Cable Mill.
The booklet “Gristmills of the Smokies” published by the Association states that “Cable Mill’s power comes from Mill Creek, although Cable dug a connecting channel to Forge Creek so that when water levels were low he could tap both streams.  A low dam channels water toward the head of the millrace where the first of several watergates allows the miller to regular the flow of the water.  The last watergate, on the flume, can be operated by a long lever from within the mill.”
The big waterwheel is 11 feet tall and 5 feet wide. It is a classic overshot wheel used on fast mountain streams.  Undershot wheels, used on slow flat water streams, turned as water flowed past the bottom of the wheel.  Overshot wheels are much more energy efficient, so even 143 years ago Mr. Cable was thinking “green.”
When asked how he eats his cornmeal Haaby says: “My wife uses it to make cornbread.  She fries stuff.  I had a heart attack and so I don’t eat a lot of that stuff.  But she does.  Right in front of me she’ll eat it.”
You can learn more from Mr. Haaby and the other miller at Cable Mill. Stop by any day through October.  Listen and learn.  Ask questions.  It’s a lesson in history, in lore, in Blount County long before grocery stores, microwave dinners, or any of our “take it for granted” ways of life.

Recipe for SPOONBREAD

2 ½ c. boiling water
2 c. cornmeal
2 egg yokes
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 Tbsp melted butter
1 ½ c. buttermilk

Stir cornmeal gradually into boiling water; let cool.
Add beaten egg yolks, baking power and salt.
Also add melted butter and the buttermilk.
Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.
Bake in greased baking dish at 425 degrees for 45 minutes.
Serves 8

recipe from: "Gristmills of the Smokies”
Published by Great Smoky Mountains Association