Murray's Mill Historic District

Murray's Mill Historic District covers roughly 150 acres of rolling countryside along Ball's Creek in eastern Catawba County. At its center is a two-story frame mill built in 1912-1913 beside a concrete dam and mill pond. The mill still holds its 1913 machinery and a large overshot wheel. Around it are a grain house, a store that was rolled across the road to make room for the new mill, four Murray family houses, a barn and many small farm outbuildings. A mill operated here between 1873 and 1883, and the Murray family ran it from 1883 until it closed in 1967, across four generations. It ground meal, flour and feed and also sawed lumber. The district is described as the last surviving complex of its type in the county and the last water-driven mill to operate there. Its plain gable-roofed vernacular buildings and the setting around them have changed little since the early twentieth century.