Mill History

Milling is an important part of the history of Clifton and the surrounding area. In the early 1800s, water power was essential and the thundering waters of the Little Miami River in Clifton Gorge attracted numerous entrepreneurs who established mills to serve the region. During the 1800s of the more than 70 mills in Greene County, sixteen were located in the Clifton area. Today Clifton Mill is the only one still in operation.

Around 1802 Owen Davis and his son-in-law, Benjamin Whiteman, built the first mills at Clifton. They first created a log dam across the upper gorge and built a saw mill to provide lumber for further construction. By 1803, they had built the original Clifton Mill, a tavern, a trading post, a distillery and several cabins. During the War of 1812 Clifton Mill produced grain to feed the troops. From 1908 to 1938, it provided electricity for the residents of Clifton, Cedarville and Yellow Springs at a rate of $2.00 a month for businesses and $1.00 a month for private homes.

Around 1805, down river from Clifton Mill, Col. Robert Patterson built a woolen mill that spanned the gorge like a bridge. Patterson’s woolen mill employed as many as 80 workers before it was washed away in 1870. During the War of 1812 Col. Patterson, a Quartermaster, operated his woolen mill day and night to produce cloth and buttons for the Army. The cloth and buttons were transported to Dayton to be made into uniforms. Today, from an overlook deck on a Clifton Gorge hiking trail, you can see the square holes that were cut into the limestone to anchor the mill. The photo on the right shows post-flood remnants of the support structure and the dam, now completely gone.

Around 1814 Robert Moodie built a grist mill called Moodie's Mill. The mill burned down in 1821 and the present building was built on the old foundation. It was sold to Frank Grinnell in 1864 and became known as Spring Lea Mill. The Grinnell family owned the mill for the next 84 years, until 1948. Today the mill is known as Grinnell Mill. Grinnell Mill was given to Antioch College and eventually deteriorated to the point of being a fire hazard. In 2003 the Miami Twp. Fire Dept. ordered it to be fixed or demolished. The college was financially unable to fix it as they had been unable to maintain it over the years. Concerned area residents, Miami Township Trustees, Glen Helen Nature Preserve and the Yellow Springs Historical Society formed a group and made arrangements with the college to preserve the old treasure. With donations of money, skilled workman and copious hours, today Grinnell Mill is looking very much as it did when first built. For more information visit www.miamitownship.net/mill.asp

Brewer’s Mill, further down river, was a grist mill which ceased operation in 1843. It was located at the end of present-day Swimming Pool Rd. near the Boy Scout Camp. The photo at the right is labeled "Mr. J. S. Saberton, the 'Master of Ferncliffe', viewing the valley of the Little Miami and the Brewer's Mill." It is from a stereopticon slide produced by Gano & Clark, date unknown. Ferncliffe Farm is now part of Glen Helen Nature Preserve and John Bryan State Park.

In the early to mid 1800s the Hager Paper Mill was in operation further down the Little Miami River. Straw was beaten by mallets, mixed with water and cooked in a steaming colander. The odor was pungent, and the brown-colored, silt-laden water that was dumped from the mill into the Little Miami River killed most of the fish. The mill’s remote location in the gorge created havoc for the mule teams that delivered supplies and hauled the finished product to the rail station at Yellow Springs.

Flooding problems coupled with "progress" led to the demise of every mill along the gorge except Clifton Mill. Electricity was becoming favored over water power so mill owners chose not to rebuild when their mills were destroyed by flooding. Clifton’s population boom and industrial era ended when the newly built railroad passed through Yellow Springs instead of Clifton. Manufacturers no longer looked at Clifton since water power was not important and the village was not along the railroad. Cholera came to Clifton in 1849, killing half its residents and inspiring half of the survivors to leave town for good.

Today, when you visit Clifton Mill to see first-hand how one of America’s oldest industries operates, take a look around the streets of Clifton. Most of the town's original buildings are still here and little changed. It's easy to imagine what it was like in the 1800s with travelers from all over the world drinking and sharing stories at the tavern and the stagecoach inn, local residents shopping at the general store, blacksmiths working at their anvils and wagons lined up bringing goods and supplies to and from the mills. History lives on the sleepy streets of Clifton, where Clifton Mill is the lone survivor of a once prosperous industry which called the gorge home. Some of the historical information for this story is from articles and documents by Fred Marshall, a prominent Greene County historian and writer who died at the age of 84 in 1975.

For years—34 to be exact—Erna Caupp was perhaps the most familiar face in Clifton. From 1948 until she retired in 1982, Mrs. Caupp served as the Postmistress of the tiny Clifton Post Office. Hers was the face villagers saw when they walked in the small white building to retrieve their mail. Of course, Mrs. Caupp knew many Clifton residents long before she started her career with the U.S. Postal Service. She was born in 1915 and was raised in a house on North River Road. Many of her childhood years are filled with fond memories related to the Clifton Mill. When she was a little girl, Mrs. Caupp would bring her wagon to the mill and gather corncobs, which she would sell for a penny apiece to elderly women in the village who would soak them in kerosene and use them to heat their wood-burning stoves. “Clifton has always been a close-knit community. When people were ill, they would send their neighbors in to pick up their mail, and I didn’t question it because I knew everyone,” said Mrs. Caupp, who lives on St. Rte. 72 in Clifton and is 84. “Some of the older residents watched me grow up, and I suspect they gave me a paddling from time to time.” Mrs. Caupp smiles as she sits in the living room of her 19th century home and reminisces about her childhood days in Clifton when times were slower and Clifton was a bustling village with general stores, a stagecoach inn, gas stations and, of course, Clifton Mill. “When I was a little girl, the mill was a place where farmers took their corn and wheat for grinding,” said Mrs. Caupp, who is a frequent diner at the Clifton Mill restaurant. “After stopping at the mill, many of them would walk over to the Clark’s General Store, which was a popular place to sit and talk.” Clark’s General Store is now an antiques store. The building that once housed Clifton’s other general store is now the location of Weber’s Antiques Mall. The post office was once located in that store. When Mrs. Caupp started her Postmistress career, she worked from an area in the general store. “I remember what a thrill it was to get penny candy at the general store and watch the farmers play their instruments at the bandstand (which was located across from Clark’s General Store on what is now mill property),” Mrs. Caupp said. Many of the members who composed the band were killed in both World Wars. Mrs. Caupp also recalls childhood lessons learned the hard way. “One day when I was a little girl, I rode on the handlebars of my brother’s bicycle across the mill’s stone dam (which stands about 30 feet above Clifton Gorge),” she said. “My father found out, and that was the worst whipping I ever remember getting.” Mrs. Caupp has lived in Clifton most of her life with the exception of a 5-year stint during World War II when she worked at a defense plant in Union City, Indiana. She remembers when Clifton Gorge was a site where families would flock on Sunday afternoons, taking boat rides given by George Grindle. “People would come in their horse-and-buggies and walk through the gorge and ride on the boat,” she said. “My folks had an ice cream stand in the gorge where they sold homemade ice cream.” As a schoolgirl, Mrs. Caupp recalls walking down North River road to Clifton Union School through deep snow in her stockings. “When I got there, my stockings were soaking wet and the teacher would send me downstairs to dry them by the coal stove,” she said with a smile. “That was a way to miss class.” Note: Mrs. Caupp passed away in 2002.