{"nrhp_refnum":"80004308","name":"Mills House and Smokehouse","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"S of Griffin at 1590 Carver Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Griffin","county":"Spalding County","state":"GA","lat":33.20942714600005,"lon":-84.29529662999994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-01-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story Italianate-style house and a concrete smokehouse called Brookfield, south of Griffin in Spalding County, Georgia, built in the mid-1870s (ca. 1875) for Thomas Mills, Sr., as a summer home.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the property is significant in architecture, commerce and local history. The house is a relatively rare, simple vernacular example of Italianate domestic architecture in Georgia. The smokehouse has poured-in-place concrete walls that were extremely unusual for the state at that time. The property also reflects the prosperity of a Savannah family whose British investments preserved their wealth during the Civil War.","narrative":"Brookfield, southwest of Griffin in Spalding County, Georgia, is a mid-1870s country house with a concrete smokehouse. Thomas Mills, Sr., a retired Savannah cotton shipper, built it as a summer retreat away from the heat and yellow fever epidemics of the coast. The house is a cube-shaped, two-story frame building under a low hipped roof, with a bracketed front porch, broad eaves with scrolled brackets and corner medallions, and a central hall with four rooms on each floor. The interior has been heavily remodeled, so the exterior and basic room layout carry the historic value. The smokehouse, about fourteen by twenty feet, has walls of poured concrete made from rubble stone, lime and clay, a method rare in Georgia at the time. The nomination ties the property to the Mills family's wartime investments in British funds, which left them prosperous when many Georgia families lost their fortunes. It also notes the house is a visible landmark on a rise.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899 (specific date ca. 1875)","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Italianate (simple, vernacular)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Form lists the property as occupied, in good condition and altered; the main house was restored and is used as a residence, with a catering service operating from an outbuilding.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:40.580507-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/80004308.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93209463","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mills_House_and_Smokehouse","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55316106"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/spalding-county/mills-house-and-smokehouse-80004308/"}