The Old Mill

The Old Mill in North Little Rock is the only structure from the 1939 award-winning movie "Gone with the Wind" to survive until now. It was featured in the opening scenes of the movie.

Never used as an actual mill, the Old Mill is part of the T.R. Pugh Memorial Park. Developer Justin Matthews contracted for the construction of a replica of a water-powered grist mill in 1931, and named the park surrounding the area in honor of his friend Pugh in 1933.

The mill, which is not a copy of any particular mill, is intended to appear abandoned as any early 1800s mill would have been in the 1930s. Though the structure was never used, many elements of it are genuine. From a brochure about the mill:

*The grist mill itself on the first floor came from the Cagle family of Pope County and dates back to 1828.

*The large mill rock on the first floor bear dates of 1823 and 1840.

*The two mill rocks on the second floor and the building's corner stone came from the plantation of Tom Knoble, Pugh's grandfather.

*Two milestones on the old road to the mill were moved there from a military road load out in the 1830s by Lt. Jefferson Davis, who later became the President of the Confederacy.

*Three sections of a wrought iron shaft protecting the "Broken Tree Bench" were cut from the stern wheel of a passenger steamboat which traveled the Arkansas River in the 1800s.

It's free to visit this beautiful mill and park area. Our girls thoroughly enjoyed it a few months ago (photo above) and are begging to go back.