John Veverka

VARNELL, Ga. — Fifty-nine years ago, John Hight, now 81, landed a job running Prater’s Mill for $60 a month. He boarded up the mill windows three years later when the Prater family shut down their milling operation.

“You hate to give it up,” Mr. Hight recalled recently.

These days, local historians are fighting to sustain the memories of Prater’s Mill and the era it represents.

On Saturday, the Prater’s Mill Foundation will hold a workshop to collect stories like Mr. Hight’s. Consultant John Veverka will weave those accounts into his five-year master plan to draw visitors to a site rich with American Indian and Civil War history.

People are asked to bring their stories, and photographs too if they have them.

The Prater family built the water-powered grist mill in 1855, powered by the waters of Coahulla Creek. They eventually added a cotton gin, saw mill, syrup mill, blacksmith’s shop and general store. “It was an 1800s shopping mall,” said Mr. Veverka, a heritage interpreter.

“This mill was the heartbeat of the community,” he added, “for a long, long time.”

Recently, the Department of Community Affairs awarded a $25,000 grant to bring the people back to Prater’s Mill for more than the annual Country Fair. That grant will fund the five-year plan, which will likely include pamphlets, on-site classes and interpretive signs.

“Hopefully, there will be a sign that says ‘Prater’s Mill. Enter,’” Mr. Veverka joked about the piece of history tucked away just east of this Whitfield County town.

Mills were prevalent in the U.S. before 1900. But they steadily decreased after that and rapidly dropped off after The Great Depression, said Mike Henry, who directs the Colvin Run Mill Historic Site in Fairfax, Va., and who visits mills around the country. “Now ... there are remnants and remains, but very few left intact,” he said.

Judy Alderman first spotted the mill from a distance when she moved here nearly 40 years ago.

In 1971, she and her friend Jane Harrell started the Prater’s Mill Foundation to preserve it.

Whitfield County’s rapid development has filled her continued efforts with a sense of urgency. “If we want to preserve the site so that it’s recognizable,” Ms. Alderman said, “then we need to do it now before there’s more encroachment.”

It was state Sen. Don Thomas, R-Dalton, who secured the grant for the interpretation.

He has a personal connection to the mill, and one of the stories like will be collected on Saturday.

As a farm boy in the 1930s and ’40s, he said he rode with his father to grind corn at Prater’s Mill. “We worked in the fields all day, so if you got the opportunity to go for a ride ... that was a big event,” he said.

But, Sen. Thomas pointed out, the history of Prater’s Mill extends beyond just the mill.

The Cherokee once lived on the surrounding land, trapping fish in Coahulla Creek. After Prater’s Mill was built, soldiers on both sides of the Civil War camped out there, Ms. Alderman said, “fortunately, not at the same time.”

Not far from the mill are grave sites of American Indians and African slaves rest.

But whizzing by on Georgia Highway 2, the average traveler might not understand the significance of the site. “Unless interpretation is here,” Mr. Veverka said, “all they see is old red buildings.”

IF YOU GO

What: Interpretive Planning Workshop

Where: City of Varnell Gym, outside of Varnell Elementary School, 3900 Cleveland Road, Dalton, Ga.

When: Saturday, 10 a.m.

For more information: (706) 694-6455 or info@pratersmill.org