The Dungan family has a long history in Carter County. William Patton \u201cW.P.\u201d Dungan Sr. built a grist mill in Blue Springs around 1853. The mill was torn down in 2017.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n
by Abby Frye – 5 October 2017<\/em><\/p>\n A piece of Carter County\u2019s history will soon be torn down, but this week state officials visited the site to document and photograph the old grist mill so it will not be forgotten.<\/p>\n The old Dungan Mill building sits along Blue Springs Road, but will soon be torn down due to its deteriorating conditions. The mill\u2019s current owner, Ben Williams, has contracted with a company to disassemble the mill.<\/p>\n Learning of the planned demolition, representatives of the Tennessee Historical Commission visited the mill site to photograph the building and its remaining equipment in order to document the mill\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n Historic Preservation Specialist Peggy Nickell traveled to Elizabethton on Wednesday to document the mill site. Tim Hyder, also a Historic Preservation Specialist and a Carter County native, tagged along with Nickell to visit the historic mill.<\/p>\n Nickell said the photographs and information she collected during her trip would be added to a file on the Dungan Mill in the state\u2019s historical archives.<\/p>\n \u201cAnytime someone comes in wanting to do research on a grist mill they will have access to that,\u201d Nickell said.<\/p>\n Nickell circled the outside of the old building before moving inside to document the mill workings still in place.<\/p>\n While the waterwheel and overshot for the mill are no longer in place, many of the interior workings were still in place, including the grinding stones, wooden gear wheels, spindles and other pieces.<\/p>\n \u201cStuff like this is disappearing from the landscape so fast,\u201d Hyder said as he inspected the mill. \u201cBuildings like this tell us a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside the mill, the level of craftsmanship is apparent according to both Nickell and Hyder. Gear wheels made of steam-bent wood are still in place. The structural supports beams \u2014 12 inches thick squared \u2014 shown evidence they were hand hewn. The central support beam, which runs the entire depth of the building, is one solid piece of hand-hewn American Chestnut.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was not somebody\u2019s first rodeo making this stuff,\u201d Hyder said as he inspected tool marks on the beams.<\/p>\n The mill is one of two constructed by the Dungan family in the region. The second mill is located just across the county line in Washington County and at the time of its closing was known as the St. John\u2019s Mill.<\/p>\n William Patton \u201cW.P.\u201d Dungan Sr. built his mill in Blue Springs around 1853. When the elder Dungan passed away in 1880, his son William Patton \u201cPat\u201d Dungan Jr. took over operation of the mill in partnership with a brother-in-law L.H. Rhudy.<\/p>\n In addition to owning the mill, Pat and his wife, Alice Sexton Dungan, were prominent citizens in Elizabethton and helped to shape the growing town. Pat served as a judge of the Carter County Court, the county\u2019s governing body and also served as mayor of Elizabethton. He was the builder of one of the first houses west of the Doe River, which still stands today on Hattie Avenue.<\/p>\n Pat and business partners founded the first bank in Elizabethton (People\u2019s Bank), had the first electric lights, the first telephone, and the first private water system. He also donated the land and the first $100 to build Dungan\u2019s Chapel Baptist Church in Stoney Creek.<\/p>\n Source: https:\/\/www.elizabethton.com\/2017\/10\/05\/documenting-history-state-officials-collect-information-on-old-mill-before-demolition\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Dungan family has a long history in Carter County. William Patton \u201cW.P.\u201d Dungan Sr. built a grist mill in Blue Springs around 1853. The mill was torn down in 2017. Documenting History: State officials collect information on old …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,40,18,17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-families-individuals","category-family-files","category-local-history-information","category-photo-albums","category-professions-professionals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tngenweb.org\/carter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tngenweb.org\/carter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tngenweb.org\/carter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tngenweb.org\/carter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tngenweb.org\/carter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tngenweb.org\/carter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/www.tngenweb.org\/carter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tngenweb.org\/carter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tngenweb.org\/carter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tngenweb.org\/carter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}