Wade’s Mill is a working flour mill built around 1750 by Captain Joseph Kennedy. It is located in Raphine, Virginia. Captain Kennedy was a Scotsman who was one of the earlier settlers in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He settled in the area between Staunton and Lexington Virginia. This was the frontier of the United States between 1740 and 1770. The Kennedy family owned the flour mill in the Shenandoah Valley for about 100 years.
In 1882, James F. Wade bought the flour mill and his family operated it for the next four generations. The interior and workings of the flour mill are much like they were when Mr. Wade bought it.
The mill is powered by a 21-foot water wheel that is fed by a nearby stream (known originally as Captain Joseph Kennedy’s Mill Creek). Wade’s Mill is one of the few remaining flour mills that still produces a wide variety of flours exclusively on mill stones. The Shenandoah Valley flour mill is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Someone has posted a video of the mill in operation on YouTube and that video is available here.
For more information on visiting the Mill, visit their web site.
I shot this as seven exposure bracketed RAW frames at 1/3 stop variance, then combined into an HDR and tone mapped in Photomatix Pro. It was alternating between rain and general gloomy conditions when I shot this. This was the third of three mills I shot in Virginia and West Virginia on 10-17-2009.
