place

Big Otter Mill

1920 establishments in VirginiaBuildings and structures in Bedford County, VirginiaCentral Virginia Registered Historic Place stubsGrinding mills in VirginiaGrinding mills on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Industrial buildings completed in 1920Mill museums in VirginiaMuseums in Bedford County, VirginiaNational Register of Historic Places in Bedford County, Virginia
Big Otter Mill
Big Otter Mill

Big Otter Mill, also known as Forbes Mill, is a historic grist mill located near Bedford, Bedford County, Virginia, USA. It was built about 1920 and is a large, 2½-story, mortise-and-tenon framed mill building, topped by an unusual and picturesque mansard roof. The mill retains a nearly complete set of early-20th century machinery, including a 13-feet diameter water wheel, which was used until the late 1940s. Also on the property are a contributing mill race and the foundation of a store. The building is under restoration as a mill museum. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Big Otter Mill (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Big Otter Mill
Big Island Highway,

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Big Otter MillContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 37.390833333333 ° E -79.503888888889 °
placeShow on map

Address

Big Island Highway

Big Island Highway
24526
Virginia, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

Big Otter Mill
Big Otter Mill
Share experience

Nearby Places

Otterburn (Bedford, Virginia)
Otterburn (Bedford, Virginia)

Otterburn is a Palladian-influenced Greek Revival plantation house near Bedford in Bedford County, Virginia. The hilltop house was first built in 1828 for Benjamin A. McDonald (1797-1871) and his wife, the former Sally Camm of Lynchburg, and overlooks the Little Otter Creek watershed. Benjamin A. McDonald, a prominent local Whig educated in Scotland, was appointed a local justice of the peace in 1832 and won election as Bedford County's first presiding justice in 1852. Re-elected twice, he served in the county's highest office from 1852 through 1864. His associated plantation in 1825 was 1,651-acre (668 ha), and included a gristmill, sawmill and dependent structures, mostly operated by enslaved labor (more than 20 slaves in the 1820s and 1830s, more than 30 slaves in 1840). At its largest, the associated plantation encompassed about 2,800-acre (1,100 ha) acres, but in modern times includes fewer than 16-acre (6.5 ha) acres. Fire gutted the original house in 1841, and it was reconstructed in the Greek Revival style by 1843, with an unusual transverse hall plan, facade that makes the 2+1⁄2-story structure look only 1+1⁄2 stories, and the addition of a loggia, cross-gable roof with a wrought iron balustrade and Greek Revival detailing. The surviving wash house also dates to this mid-19th-century era. During the Civil War, Union soldiers reportedly confiscated flour barrels from the house, and damaged interior stairwell railings when rolling them out. After McDonald died in 1871, since his only child, a daughter, did not survive infancy, the property passed through several owners until 1950, when the house became the Hines Memorial Pythian Home, an orphanage operated by the Knights of Pythias. A detached dormitory added at this time remains but lacks historic significance. The orphanage closed in the early 1960s. For two years in the late 1960s the Otterburn Academy used the premises, as a private school formed during Virginia's Massive Resistance to desegregation. The property later became a rest home for the elderly. The house is being restored.