A mischievous smile creeps across James Miller’s face as he remembers some of his first trips to White’s Mill as a child.

On especially hot summer days young Miller would ignore strict rules that forbid him from going near the family mill before he reached a certain age. When he was sure nobody was looking, Miller would hop on top of the large wheel that generated the power the mill used to crush thousands of pounds of grain a year. With his body weight providing an extra boost of speed, Miller would ride the wheel as it spun towards the cool waters below.

“I never did get caught doing that. If I did there wouldn’t be enough switch bushes in the county.” Miller said.

Besides a change allowing for his regular entry, very little about the mill has changed since Miller was a child.

In fact, very little about the mill has changed in over 200 years.

Visitors today will still smell a mix of sawdust and grain from the antiquated tools and original yellow poplar wooden walls and floors.

A series of renovations will allow White’s Mill to once again operate using entirely original tools and hydropower in a few years.

For now, Miller uses slightly modernized means.

“I’m cheating” he says of his use of electric powered though far from cutting edge machinery.

Miller insists the change won’t slow production that currently goes through 25,000 to 30,000 pounds of grain annually.

The finished product includes white and yellow cornmeal, popcorn meal, buckwheat that can be used for pancakes, whole wheat flour and yellow and white grits. Each is for sale at the mill for $3 a bag.

Massive granite stones imported from France 212 years ago were once used to crush the mill’s grain. At the time it wasn’t known that a strong enough mineral for the job existed in America.

“This here is really not that much harder,” Miller says while gesturing toward the stones. “You just really have to understand how to do this.”

This is an understanding Miller began possessing a long time ago, when his only goal was to get a break from the heat of an Abingdon summer.