Rusk, Cherokee County
In November 1847, James Ferguson, a land speculator, bought 1,600 acres including this site and built a mill. He successfully operated it for several years, employing five workers by 1852. He lost the property in a legal judgement, and it changed ownership several times in the next seventeen years. Charles E. Ford, a New England Quaker, brought his family to Cherokee County in 1869 and purchased the mill with 335 acres of creek bottom land for $442.50. An entrepreneur and inventor, Ford modernized the mill and reopened it in 1872 to grind corn, saw lumber and repair machinery. The mill's value by 1880 was $1,250. "Miller" Ford's fortune expanded to include 14 cotton gins and grist mills in the county. His son continued the mill's operation until 1917. All that remains is the mill pond and vestiges of the mill race. (1999)