The Backroads Traveler: Prater's Mill

Prater's Mill is the setting for the annual Prater's Mill Country Fair.

Prater's Mill was built in 1855 on Coahulla Creek near Varnell in Whitfield County, Georgia by Benjamin Franklin Prater. The mill was operated by the Prater family until 1954, then by a succession of millers until 1963, after which the mill fell into disuse.

In 1971, an all-volunteer foundation took over the mill and has done extensive restoration and preservation of the site, financed by the Prater's Mill Country Fair, a highly-rated arts and crafts festival held on Columbus Day weekend each October.

The face-painting booth is always popular at the Country Fair.

 Prater's Mill Heritage Park also includes old barns, the Prater residence, and the General Store. The site is open to the public every day, dawn to dusk, at no charge, and tours can be arranged by appointment. Country Fair hours are 9 a.m.–6 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m.–5 p.m. on Sunday. Prater's Mill is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The dam diverts water to the three turbines that power the millstones.

My book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era was published in 1996 and I immediately booked myself into a succession of arts and crafts fairs that fall. The Prater's Mill Country Fair was one of the most successful for me, and I continued to show and sell my books and prints there for about ten years. Basically, until I ran out of books to sell. I have many good memories of days at Prater's Mill.

 Reflections of Prater's Mill in the placid waters of the millpond.

 (This article was adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.)

About the photos: The first two photos and the last were all made with an Olympus E-M5 digital camera fitted with the Panasonic Lumix G-Vario 14-140II lens. The picture of the dam was made with a Hasselblad 500CM camera and a Zeiss 80mm lens on Fujichrome 100 film, scanned with an Epson Perfection 4990 PHOTO scanner. 

Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography   digital photography   Georgia     Hasselblad 500CM camera     Zeiss 80mm lens     travel photography     Panasonic Lumix G-Vario 14-140mm lens     Olympus E-M5 camera     old mills     Fujichrome 100 film     film photography     Prater's Mill