Alley Spring Roller Mill, Historic grist mill in Shannon County, Missouri.
The Alley Spring Roller Mill is a grain processing building with four steel rollers and a limestone block foundation spanning roughly 32 feet by 42 feet. The structure displays the design features typical of late-nineteenth-century mills built for commercial grain milling operations.
George Washington McCaskill built this merchant mill between 1893 and 1894, replacing an earlier structure that stood at the same location since 1868. The new construction reflected the modernization of grain mills during this period as technology improved processing efficiency.
The site served as a gathering place for the community in the early 1900s, where people came together for baseball games, dances, and roller skating events. These social activities reveal how deeply the mill was woven into residents' daily lives.
The site is located roughly six miles west of Eminence on State Route 106 and features interpretive signs explaining nineteenth-century grain milling techniques. Visitors can walk through the grounds easily and examine the preserved mechanical components up close.
The mill houses a 35-inch Leffel turbine in its basement pit that gave millers precise control over grinding speed and power output. This specialized component was a technological advancement that allowed operators to adjust performance with remarkable accuracy.
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