Alley Spring and Mill (Ozark National Scenic Riverways)

The red mill at Alley stands on the spring branch, not the Jacks Fork. Alley Spring rises at the foot of a limestone bluff six miles west of Eminence, averaging 89 million gallons a day, usually a calm azure and after storms a churning brown, and that steady flow is what the mill was built to use.

George Washington McCaskill built the present mill in 1893 and 1894 as a merchant mill, larger than most in the Jacks Fork country, replacing one on the same site that was standing by 1868. Farmers brought wheat or corn, and the miller bought it, traded for it, or took a toll, a share of the grain, for grinding. In place of an old water wheel, a 35-inch Leffel turbine sat in a pit under the back porch, its speed set from a control wheel on the porch. Belts drove a shaft the length of the building, elevators lifted the grain through roller machines again and again until it was fine, and a swing sifter shook the flour through sieves. Floods kept the business marginal, and a roller mill for wheat flour in a country that mostly grew corn was a marketing mistake. The building was unpainted at first, then white with green trim, and only later red.

John Knotts bought the 80-acre site in 1902 and added a store and a blacksmith shop, and Alley grew into a community with dances, baseball and roller skating. It became a state park in 1924 and part of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways in 1969.