Oconaluftee
Pioneer Farmstead
What kind of people were the Smokies pioneers? Part of the answer awaits you at the Pioneer Farmstead next to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center on the North Carolina side of the park. The farmstead buildings suggest an independent people who were hardworking, laboring spring, summer, and fall to prepare for the coming winter.
This is a typical Southern Appalachian pioneer farm. The life style of earlier years is demonstrated by people in period dress here from May through October. A few animals roam the farm-yard and the garden produces traditional crops. In the fall sorghum cane may be pressed to make sorghum molasses. Inside the cabin—you can poke your head through its open doors and windows—traditional breads may be baking, or a quilt be patching, or wool a-spinning. And don’t forget to notice the fieldstone chimneys, the squared logs’ careful notchings, and the handsplit wooden “shakes” up on the roof.
Just up the road is Mingus Mill, an excellent example of a turbine-powered gristmill. A miller is often on hand May through October to answer your questions about how waterpower was used to produce cornmeal and flour. You might even be able to purchase some of the cornmeal or the flour ground right at the mill. Wheat is harder than corn and requires harder stone to grind it. Millstones for grinding wheat in this area were imported from France. The stones used for grinding corn were cut domestically.
A commercial mill the size of Mingus Mill would generally be built by a specially skilled carpenter known as a millwright, a term which has taken broader meaning today.