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Marshall Mill and Elevator

By Ron Munden

Yesterday I drove past the old mill.  The lighting was good and my memories were vivid so I stopped and took a photograph.

My memories go back to 1948.  From the time I was 5 to 9 years old I spent all my summers with my grandparents on their farm on Old Scottsville Highway.  There were no other kids around so I spent all my time with my grandfather.  Every two weeks or so we drove to Marshall Mill and backed up to the loading dock.  

Why, you might ask.

Every year during this period, Mr. Franklin Young, President of the Marshall Bank,  would take three steers  from his farm in Bear Bottom and deliver them to my grandfather’s farm.  My grandfather would feed them until they were ready to “be harvested.”  Mr. Young would take the meat from the two biggest ones and my grandfather would get the meat from the smallest one.  That was our meat supply for the year.

It took lots of bags of grain to fatten up these animals.  My grandfather had an old car, not a truck.  The trunk would only hold two bags of grain.  That lasted a week or two then we had to go back to the Elevator to get more grain.

The grain was mixed with molasses.  I loved the smell of those bags as they were loaded into the back of the car.  The bags were stored in wooden barrels in the barn. Some days I would get a handful of the molasses covered grain from a barrel.  That was was my afternoon snack. 

Needless to say, I have fond memories of the Marshall Mill and Grain Elevator.