Alfred Reagan House on the Roaring Fork Motor Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
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The third homestead on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park belonged to Alfred Reagan. Both his house and grist mill remain on the property. In addition to farming, Reagan worked as a carpenter and blacksmith, plus he ran a general store and the mill.
The Reagan house appears to be modern, but there is a log cabin at its core. By the late 1800s, log cabins had gone out of style, and instead of tearing them down and building a brand new house, owners simply put wood siding on the outside and inside, encasing the original cabin. The house is open to the public, but there are no furnishings inside.
Interior of the Alfred Reagan House on the Roaring Fork Motor Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The mill is the more interesting of the two buildings. You can see the flume that carried water, the building itself, and the wooden turbine, or “waterwheel,” located below the building. Fast moving water was used to spin the wheel that was connected to a shaft that ran up through the bottom of the mill. The shaft was in turn connected to the millstones. As the waterwheel spun, so did the stones. Corn or other grain was placed into a hopper and released a little at a time so that it fell between the top spinning stone and the stationary bottom stone. The gap between the two was very thin and could be adjusted to fine tune the coarseness of the crushed grain. You can see the hopper inside the mill building. The owner would charge money to those who had it or keep part of the output, which he would either use himself or take to a larger town and sell for cash.
Alfred Reagan Grist mill and water flume on the Roaring Fork Motor Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Hopper and mill stones (enclosed in the circular box) inside the Alfred Reagan Grist Mill in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
A waterwheel can be spun by placing it directly in a fast moving river, but what if the river near the mill doesn’t flow very fast? Or if the mill can’t be built right on the river due to regular flooding? The solution is to build a flume to carry water from the source to the mill. But remember, the water must somehow gather enough speed before hitting the waterwheel. This can be accomplished in a number of ways, one of which is to construct the mill so that the wheel is lower than the flume. At the end of the flume, the water either free falls onto the wheel like a waterfall or takes a steep nosedive along a sloped section of the flume before hitting the wheel. The Reagan mill used the latter method, and you can see the flume slope below the building in both the above photo of the mill and flume and in the photo below of the waterwheel. Water hits the paddle-like spokes on the wheel, which causes it to spin. The wheel at the Reagan mill is a little rotted, but it clearly shows the intended design.
Flume of the Alfred Reagan Grist Mill dumps water onto the wheel which turns the wooden shaft, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Plan to spend no more than fifteen minutes to see the Alfred Reagan Homestead.
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Last updated on January 30, 2025
