Around 1841, Capt. James Cunningham (father of Mrs. John A. Logan), Milton and Dr. Jonathon Mulkey saw the necessity of having a flouring mill for this region. They bought the necessary machinery and had it shipped to Marion by ox teams before the town was built and before railroads existed in these parts. But, being ignorant of the whole business, they could do nothing with the machinery in their possession, nor could they find anyone who could and it lay piled up on the prairie for a long while.

George Felts and John Hooper, who lived in Franklin County, heard of the situation and bought the outfit for a song in 1843 or 44. They then erected the first grist and saw mill in the county. Most of the wood they worked was of walnut and poplar. It was run by stream fed by a mill pond with water diverted from a branch of Crab Orchard Creek. The mill pond sat roughly where the E. Blankenship building sits today between W. Main and W. Union, N. Court and the RR tracks. (See maps)

So great was the demand that customers often had to wait three or four weeks for their turn. So busy were the enterprising millers with their saw mill and grinding that they had no time to build a new home and lived in their log cabin on W. Main St. just east of their mill for years.

John M. Edwards purchased it about the year 1857.  The old wooden mill finally burned down and  his son, Charles M. Edwards, and Andrew J. Mann rebuilt the mill, this time with brick in 1862, later they built the woolen mills and flouring mills attached thereto.

In the woolen-mill they manufactured jeans, linseys, tweeds, flannels, blankets, yarns, satinets, cassimeres, etc., of as good a quality as were produced anywhere in the United States. They consumed about 150 pounds of wool per day. The flouring-mills were operated under a lease by Messrs. Prindle & Borton, who did a very successful business.

The three story building which housed both the flour mill and a woolen mill stood until 1920 when it was purchased by A.B. McLaren and torn down. This is the only photo I have run across of it and was related to damage done during a storm in 1912.

A glass bottle shaped like a log cabin was found in the brick smokestack. It contained several documents, including a statement, dated Nov. 6, 1863, and signed by Charles M. Edwards, certifying that the building was owned by John M. Edwards and his sons, John B. and Charles M. and Andrew Mann.

John M. Edwards was born February 13, 1799. His son Charles was the father of Dr. A.M. Edwards, who died in 1923, and the late Miss Ada Edwards, Marion school teacher, and Mrs. Nan Spiller, wife of Ed M. Spiller, a former county judge.

Charles M. Edwards was a multi term officer on the Marion City Board of Trustees from 1865 to 1881. A.M. Edwards was on the Board of Education and active in the school system.

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(Photo of mill from Williamson County Historical Society; data from 1905 Souvenir Book, WCHS; Goodspeed’s History of the County, 1895; Bi-Centennial Edition of Marion Daily Republican published in 1976; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 01/13/2013)