{"nrhp_refnum":"95000973","name":"Hays Creek Mill","other_names":["McClung's Mill","Patterson's Mill","Steele's Mill","VDHR File No."],"category":"building","location":{"address":"VA 724, 0.1 mi. N of jct. with VA 726","address_restricted":false,"city":"Brownsburg","county":"Rockbridge County","state":"VA","lat":37.93557445700003,"lon":-79.34373970699994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1995-08-04","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Industry"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A flour gristmill on Hays Creek near Brownsburg, Rockbridge County, Virginia, built about 1819 of tulip poplar on a limestone basement. The four-and-one-third-acre property also holds a miller's house, a garage (a former corncrib) and a barn.","why_significant":"The mill is presented as a surviving example of the many mills that once served Rockbridge County, and it is significant in architecture and industry. It is a typical case of the stone and timber construction used in the county's rural industrial buildings. It has high integrity, having changed little since an enlargement in the 1870s, and has distinctive octagonal support columns. It operated until 1957.","narrative":"Hays Creek Mill is a two-and-a-half-story flour mill near Brownsburg in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Built about 1819 entirely of tulip poplar on a raised limestone basement, it was enlarged to the east in the late nineteenth century and has changed little since. An iron overshot wheel fifteen feet across and an iron race were added in the twentieth century. Inside, octagonal support columns with chamfered stops and adjustable shims were designed to carry heavy machinery. The property also includes a mid-nineteenth-century miller's house, a barn and a garage that began as a corncrib. The mill ground grain for the lower part of the county into the mid-twentieth century, running until 1957 as a grist, saw and fulling mill. Census records show it was among the county's larger mills in 1820 and again in 1870. It is recognized as a well-preserved example of rural Rockbridge County industrial construction in stone and timber.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1819-1920","architect_builder":"unknown","architectural_style":"Early Republic: Federal","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"The building is now used as a woodworking shop and storage facility, and most of the original milling equipment was removed in the twentieth century.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:00.577849-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/18/6834/41683418/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/95000973.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/95000973/ac63fdb30d-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/95000973/ac63fdb30d-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hays_Creek_Mill_front_and_southeastern_side.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hays_Creek_Mill_front_and_southeastern_side.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41683418","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Creek_Mill","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15223399"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/rockbridge-county/hays-creek-mill-95000973/"}