Historic Readyville Mill saved with hard work, elbow grease on The Murfreesboro Post

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Historic Readyville Mill saved with hard work, elbow grease

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By: MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer

Posted: Sunday, March 8, 2009 8:38 am

Historic Readyville Mill saved with hard work, elbow grease | Generations, Heritage

Tomm Brady stands in front of his "retirement" project.

When the Readyville Mill closed in 1979, it was left for dead.

That was until March of 2006 when Bell Buckle’s Tomm Brady stumbled upon it, while trying to add to his millstone collection.

“I came out looking for those stones and found it,” Brady said.

And he instantly fell in love.

“I bought it because I thought it was a beautifully shaped building,” he said.

The mill has a long history, dating back to 1812 when Charles Ready built the first mill on the banks of the East Fork of the Stones River.

That mill and associated buildings burned sometime during the Civil War but was rebuilt in 1878.

“There is no standing facility any more important in the history of Rutherford County and the area than the Readyville Mill,” said Steve Cates, a local historian and Ready descendant. “Charles Ready was a ‘mover and shaker’ of the highest order in the beginning days of Rutherford County.”

Ready actively lobbied for his town of Readyville to be named as the seat of Rutherford County and was angered when the county commission named Murfreesboro instead, Cates said.

But Ready’s best achievement is, arguably, the mill itself.

The 79-foot structure produced flour, corn meal, lumber, ice and even electricity over its long life.

In the early 1900s, the mill powered an icehouse after mill worker Arthur McFerrin installed a turbine to generate electricity from the mill, Brady said.

“They made 300-pound blocks of ice right here,” Brady said, pointing into the icehouse. “And cut the blocks into 50-pound blocks and delivered them in Rutherford and Cannon counties.”

McFerrin even wired the houses of the town with electric lights in 1918, making Readyville one of the first rural towns in Tennessee to have eletricity. And the Tennessee Valley Authority began buying electricity from the mill in 1937.

Brady is completely fascinated with the mill and has turned his project into a labor of love.

When Brady happened upon the mill, it was a little worse for wear.

The fact it was still standing at all was because of the efforts of PARQ (Preserve the Area’s Rural Qualities), Readyville’s historic organization.

PARQ did its best to winterize and protect the building, but nature had still run its course.

The windows were long gone. The floor joists were rotten, along with the wooden siding, tin roof and hardwood floors.

“It was in awful shape,” Brady said. But he was looking for a retirement project and thought restoring the mill would be worthwhile.

“It’s kept me busy.”

Brady has done most of the work himself.

When he received a $54,000 estimate to have the windows replaced, he went to a cabinetmaker in Franklin, learned how to work with wood and built replacement windows himself for $3,000.

He hired Murfreesboro engineer Bob Warren to help jack up the mill and replace the rotten, wooden floor joists with steel beams.

“We used his engineering expertise to jack the mill up, so we didn’t tip it into the river,” Brady said.

He repainted the mill, icehouse, granary and miller’s cabin three times with a paintbrush. It took him six months.

“I’ve done every ounce of it myself,” Brady said.

But Brady’s excitement about the mill doesn’t truly show until he explains how it would’ve worked in the old days.

Brady’s blue eyes sparkled with excitement when explaining the “engineering marvel” that was 19th Century grist milling.

He explained how the wheat was dropped off on the first floor and carried in conveyer belt cups up to the fourth floor, only to fall back down the mill, floor by floor until it was clean enough to grind to flour.

“This was the industry of Readyville during the day,” Brady said.

The mill is an important part of Readyville’s past and now a part of the rural town’s future, thanks to Brady’s work.

He’s started booking weddings and class reunions and hopes to open a restaurant one day.

“It is amazing that the mill is still standing today,” Cates said. “Most all others of that era are gone.”

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com.

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Tags: Generations, Heritage

Member Opinions:

By: Trvlace on 3/8/09
When is the mill open to the public? I can remember Brown's Mill and Halls Hill Mill. Never saw Elam's Mill but the dam is still there.

By: appdancer on 3/8/09
Tomm is glad for any persons or groups to come to visit. You just have to check with him to make sure he can be there to host. His email is bradys@hughes.net He is very generous in sharing it with the general public.

steve cates

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