New owner breathes life into old Spring Mill
For decades, Spring Mill stood along Arkansas 69 as a landmark to those traveling through Independence County, as well as to those who lived nearby. When it was first built in 1867, the mill provided a place for farmers to take their corn, traders to get needed supplies and residents to catch up on the news.
Although the mill and general store have been closed for years, local resident Michael Gillihan has purchased the property and is working to bring the mill back to life.
To honor his work, Preserve Arkansas presented Gillihan with the Excellence in Personal Projects award at the 2019 Arkansas Preservation Awards on Jan. 17 at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock.
“It was a big honor,” Gillihan said. Gillihan, 39, said he lives down the road from the mill and has a lot of good memories of the place from his childhood, and when a family member suggested he buy the mill, Gillihan said it wasn’t a hard sell.
“When I was a kid, my grandpa lived in Melbourne, and I would stay there on weekends, and we would stop by here,” he said.
But after the mill closed, Gillihan
said, he would still see it every day and finally realized, “I’m ready to do something different. I built my house, I’ve built some other stuff, and I enjoyed it. I just wanted to build something for our community.”
Renovations started on the mill on March 11, 2019, and Gillihan said he wanted to build a deck on the water that would be a venue for weddings.
“I built it extra strong. It can hold close to 200 people,” Gillihan said.
The first wedding to take place there was his and Megan’s, on the Fourth of July last year. Megan, who also grew up in the area, works for the Department of Human Services.
Gillihan said he plans to eventually reopen the old general store, where he can envision people coming to sit a spell, drink coffee and catch up on the news. He also said he plans to stock the water with trout — just the way it was when he was growing up.
Inside the store, Gillihan opened up the area where the water gate is so visitors can look down and see the mechanism that turns the millstone. He said he’s got some lanterns he plans to hang for better lighting.
He said the mill quit grinding corn around the 1960s, although the general store continued to operate well beyond that. The mill was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Gillihan also sandblasted layer upon layer of paint to get down to the original wood for the shelving, where he will stock concessions and clothing and other items with the mill’s name and logo.
He also has a few people interested in selling handmade items there, he said.
Some of the windows were broken out, so he installed new glass panes, and there were plenty of critters he had to evict from the old store, he said.
He also insulated the second and third stories before adorning the walls and ceilings with old tin. One of the hoppers is still in place, but Gillihan said he plans to make a light fixture from another one.
While he doesn’t yet have a target date in mind for the completion of the project, “we should be close in the next two months,” he said.
When he’s finished, he said, he plans to hold an open house for the mill and the house.
He also plans to open the mill for school tours.
“I feel we need that; you don’t see stuff like this anymore.”
The mill isn’t the only structure on the property that is getting an upgrade. Gillihan is also renovating the house behind the mill, the longtime home of John A. Lytle Jr. and Ora Mae Lytle.
The house had been empty for about a year and a half when Gillihan purchased the property. Windows were damaged, and there were repairs needed “from top to bottom,” he said.
In the kitchen, cabinets and countertops alike are made of weathered barn wood, adorned with tin that Gillihan said he found in the basement when he began working on the mill. He also plans to have a mural of the mill painted above the cabinets, but the biggest conversation piece in the kitchen might be the sink.
“That’s going to be a wooden sink when I’m done. The bottom will be concrete, and then I’ll put sealer over it,” he explained. “I want stuff people have never seen before.”
He’s extending the barn wood from the sink to the countertops, then plans to pour sealer to make a hard, clear top.
“I’m thinking about putting up old pictures of back in the day of this place; I’ve got pictures through the years,” he said.
He also tore everything out of the original upstairs bathroom to make way for more barn wood, as well as a clawfoot tub that is original to the home. The tin ceiling actually came from another building in Bethesda.
But the biggest change is the addition of 3,510 square feet on two levels.
The bottom is a large party space for weddings, Christmas parties, Halloween events or anything else, while the upstairs will include a new game/living room with additional bedrooms and another bathroom.
Once finished, the house will have eight bedrooms and four bathrooms, “that way plenty of people will be able to stay,” Gillihan said.
He is also adding an open balcony surrounding the top floor, enough room for family dinners or other events.
Outside, he also had the steps leading to the front door rebuilt, as well as a small stone fence in front of the house, and he plans to add a handicapped-accessible ramp on the side, not to mention new landscaping.
“We’re getting it knocked down,” he said.
In the hillside behind the house is a large tank nestled into the woods.
“Back in the day, they used to pump water up the hill, and then the water would feed into the house,” Gillihan said. “The Lytles had a pump truck, and [J.A. Lytle] would haul water around to a lot of people.”
Gillihan said he has plans for the opposite side of the road but doesn’t want to elaborate on them just yet.
As owner of Gilly’s Truck and Equipment Sales, he said, he has traveled all over the United States for work, but “this is home. I like it here better than anywhere,” he said. “I hope all this will be here when I’m gone, for years to come.”
Since Gillihan started renovations, he’s had numerous people stop — some, complete strangers — and ask what’s going on and what his plans are. Some are people who’ve driven by the mill all their lives, but some are unfamiliar with the area.
“It’s amazing; we’ll get a lot of big trucks that will pull over on the side of the road, and [the drivers] take pictures,” he said.
But one thing is constant: “Everybody wishes it was done yesterday,” Gillihan said.