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Located near Bedford IN and just outside the town of Mitchell, you will find one of the best kept secrets of Indiana. Spring Mill Park is full of things to do and see.

Imagine being able to step back in time all the way back to the 1800’s. Spring Mill Park has a period pioneer village complete with a working grist mill. There are over 20 log cabin structures dating back to the early 1800’s. As you wander through the village, there are “interpreters” to guide your way and demonstrate the way people lived and worked back then. Dressed in period clothing and using the original styled instruments, you can get a lesson on anything from candlemaking to leather tanning. See the old school house complete with a “school marm” who has her own cabin next to the school.

Let’s take a tour of this wonderful place.

Weavers Shop:

    The Weaver’s Shop is represented by the 1816 home of George Sheeks. The Sheeks cabin originally stood about 3 miles north of Spring Mill and was moved here in 1933. Inside the cabin sits an antique loom, made of chestnut wood that was a gift from George Sheeks (portrait above hangs in the building) to his wife, Elizabeth.

Granny White House

  This home was moved to Spring Mill from the town of Leesville, Indiana in 1931 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It was built in 1824 by David White, second husband to Sally Cummins (“Granny White”).

Leather Shop


    This cabin sits on the original foundations of Amaziah Munson’s leather shop. When his wife died in childbirth in 1855, Munson relocated his shop to Mitchell. Andrew Todd’s 1830 home was moved here in 1930 to represent the Munson house.

Gristmill

                      This limestone mill is an original structure that was built by Cuthbert and Thomas Bullitt in 1817. Water flowing out of Hamer Cave pours over the water wheel and drives the gears that spin the grindstones. In the 1800s, the upper two floors of the mill were used to store grain that was waiting to be ground. Farmers generally paid the miller for his services with a percentage of their crop.

Sawmill

    The original sawmill was built in 1823 by William and Joseph Montgomery. It was restored, in what is believed to be its original location, in 1932. Known as a vertical sash mill, the saw is powered by an undershot wheel and saws wood at a rate of 1 foot every 2 minutes.

Distillery / Woodshop

    The present building was constructed in 1932 out of logs salvaged from several structures; it sits on the foundations of the original distillery, which was built in 1823 by the Montgomery’s. Corn was fermented in mash tubs on the side of the building with a raised wooden floor (this side of the building is now used as a woodshop). On the other side of the building, which has a dirt floor, the fermented mash was turned into whiskey. The copper still rested over a fire pit in the floor and used water that was siphoned off from the gristmill flume.

Tavern


              The Montgomery’s built a tavern here in 1824. Known historically as an “ordinary,” it provided those ordinary essentials needed by travelers – food and lodging (for both men and horses). Since the original building was unsalvageable, the 1816 home of Timothy Murray was moved to this location in 1932 to represent the tavern.

Pottery Shop

This building, the home of Young Edwards, was moved to this location in 1933. The house was originally used to represent the mid-1800s hat shop of John Lindsey. It was later converted into a carpentry shop and then became the pottery shop. Scattered records indicate that a potter worked at Spring Mill Village during the 1800s, but the location of that operation is unknown.

Mill Office

This is an original structure that was built here by Cuthbert and Thomas Bullitt in 1818; it was restored in 1929. The mill operator’s business transactions were conducted here for many years. When the Hamers purchased the village in the early 1830s, they roofed over the courtyard to adjoin this building with the adjacent Nursery / School and Upper Residence structures, converting this building into living space.

Nursery / School

     
     Hugh and Thomas Hamer constructed this building in 1830, and it was restored in 1933. It served as children’s quarters for the Hamer families and may occasionally have been used as a community schoolhouse. The clapboard siding on the exterior of this building was typical by the mid-1800s and prevalent throughout the village of Spring Mill.

Garden Cabin
    Also known as the residence of the school teacher, early photographs indicate that a building did sit in this area during the 1800s and written records mention a dye house (built around 1830) located to the west of the Nursery. This structure, donated by the Ferguson family, was moved to this location from Doans, Indiana in 1995.

Formal Garden

         
The Hamers maintained a garden in this area, growing vegetables, flowers, and herbs. Originally, the garden would’ve been protected from animals by a wooden picket fence. The current stone wall, next to the garden, was added during village restoration work in the early 1930s. The outer stone wall, further to the east, is original to the 1800s and was used to keep hogs out of the yard and the gardens.

Upper Residence

Although they owned the village, Cuthbert and Thomas Bullitt kept their permanent residence in Louisville, Kentucky. They built a house at this location in 1817, as a place to stay when they visiting their investment. The next set of village owners, William and Joseph Montgomery, used the house in the same manner. Hugh Hamer was the first
person to use this building for a permanent residence, after he and his brother, Thomas, were hired to manage the gristmill in 1823. The actual structure that sits here today is the 1820 home of John Allen, and was moved here Pinhook, Indiana in 1933.

Lower Residence

Only the two chimneys still stood when reconstruction work on this building began in 1935. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) used salvaged timbers from other structures to encompass the chimneys and recreate the house on its original foundations. As with the Upper Residence, the house that sat here in the 1800s was stayed in occasionally by the Bullitts, and then the Montgomery’s., when they came to Spring Mill to check on their investment. When Hugh and Thomas Hamer were hired as millers in 1823, Thomas’s family became the first people to use it as a permanent residence.

Summer Kitchen
This is a reconstruction of a summer kitchen that once sat at this same location. Summer kitchens were used for cooking on warm days, to keep the heat of the fires out of the main building. It was also a place for laundry, soap-making, and other chores. The spring-fed pit on the side of the building was used to keep perishable foods cool and close at hand. (See photo of the upper residence, the summer kitchen is in the background)

Springhouse

The springhouse is an original structure that was built by the Hamers around 1840. Cool water from an underground spring flows through the building, keeping the temperature low enough for the storage of perishable foods. In the 1800s, wooden shelves lined the walls and doors would have kept the cool air inside.

Carriage House

     
There was a carriage house and stabling for oxen and horses in the village during the 1800s, but it likely sat just to the west of the Formal Garden. This spot was chosen as the new site for the Carriage House during reconstruction work because barns once stood here during the 1800s.

Blacksmith Shop When this building was erected during village reconstruction work in 1931, it was used to represent the smallest of three barns that were clustered here in the 1800s. In 1983, the structure was converted into a blacksmith shop. It is unlikely that a full-time blacksmith worked at Spring Mill Village in the 1800s. Instead, it appears blacksmiths were brought in on an as-needed basis to complete specific jobs.

Meeting House
    There was no church in Spring Mill during the 1800s. Early residents relied on the services of a circuit preacher, who rode into town periodically and conducted services in the homes of local families. Churches did spring up in neighboring communities, and many villagers traveled to them for weekly services. Because church buildings were also used for government functions and village gatherings, they were often known as “meeting houses.” This building was erected in 1976 from salvaged timber, and represents a typical meeting house of the period.

Apothecary
        The Apothecary is an original building to Spring Mill. Built by the Hamers in 1830, it served as the office for Dr. Jacob Lemon, a self-taught practitioner of medicine. The structure was restored in 1929, made possible by donations of both money and artifacts from Eli Lilly (of Lilly Pharmaceuticals).

Mercantile

    (Building on the right) This is an original structure built here in 1828. It was the first post office for the village, which was given the name Arcole. The name of the village was changed to Spring Mill in 1831. The post office operated here until 1859, when it was moved to the nearby town of Mitchell. The building was also used as a general store, supplying villagers and area residents with manufactured goods.

Renfro Restroom
This modern bathroom is provided for the convenience of our 21st century visitors. Spring Mill villagers did not have running water and flush toilets for their bathrooms; instead, they used outhouses scattered amongst the buildings. Old magazines and paper scraps were used instead of toilet paper.
Stagecoach Road
The remnant of an original stagecoach road, established in the 1820s, still runs through the village. The road enters the village by descending the hill next to the Pottery Shop. This section of the road is marked on park maps as the “Stagecoach Trail.” The road continues through the village, past the Tavern, Distillery, Gristmill, and Meeting House. After crossing the bridge, the road climbs the hill to the right. Two steps of stone steps, used by stagecoach riders to enter and exit the carriage, still rest along the road. One is located by the Mill Office; the other sits under a tree next to the Gristmill.

Spring Mill State Park has two caves open to the public. Twin cave is a two cave system with the cave openings facing each other where the stream comes out of one cave and goes into the other. During our visit, one of the caves was closed off to the public. Not sure the reason or if it was going to reopen. You can see the mouth of this cave as you come down the stairs to the boat ramp off to your right. Twin Caves is traversed by boat tours. It follows a subterranean stream about 150m into the cave.During heavy rain periods the caves may be too flooded to offer tours.         Donaldson Cave is the second cave in the park. It is more of a naturalist cave. You travel down several hundred wooden steps down to the entrance of the cave from the parking log above. The cave itself is an easy cave to negotiate but you will need to bring your own lighting source. (We forgot to take flashlights and weren’t able to visit Donaldson Cave) There are several endangered species of the northern blind cave fish in residence in the cave. Remember this is government protected land so no defiling or taking of items out of the cave.

Donaldson Cave is named for George Donaldson who was a native Scot. After coming to America, he purchased a tract of forest in 1865. He did not allow the timber to be cut or any hunting on his land. Thanks to his wonderful insight, Donaldson Woods Nature Preserve has native trees over 300 years old. As with the pioneer village, it is a testament to how things were back in the 1800’s with a very rare hardwood forest as was prevalent back then.

The cave system is only one one sight of a 535hundred acre park, which includes many karst features such as sinkholes and stream risings. Mitchell Karst Plain is a nature preserve with one of the highest concentrations of sinkholes in the United States, in average 40 per square kilometer.

While we were there, there was a small string band playing in one of the picnic areas of the park near the pioneer village.

The park boasts many trails to walk, places to picnic, numerous species of wildlife as well as a real life astronaut museum dedicated to John Grissom, the second man in space. Grissom hailed from the small town near Spring Mill Park of Mitchell. In the museum there is among other things an actual space capsule. Let’s take a quick peek there.                  

And so our day ends at Spring Mill State Park. It is a location that I intend to visit often because I am sure there are many more things to explore there and share.

Photographs by Roxie Don.

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