Bear's Mill - Greenville, Ohio

Bear's Mill is a historic gristmill near the city of Greenville, Ohio. Built in 1849, this watermill is the oldest existing industrial building in Darke County. Built by Manning Hart and William Moses, local contractors. The mill lies along Greenville Creek in southwestern Adams Township. It was purchased before its completion by Pennsylvanian Gabriel Bear, who completed and opened the mill in 1849. After his locally made millstones proved faulty, Bear travelled to France in 1850, where he acquired stones of a type, French Buhr stones, regarded worldwide as of highest quality; the same stones which are used today. The mill is a wooden building with a stone foundation and a metal roof. It remained in continuous operation for well over a century, slowing from full capacity only in the late 1970s when the miller, Charles Andrew, decided to go into partial retirement. Since then, now with Master Miller, Terry Clark, the mill has continued in use: partially as a milling museum, and partially as a gristmill. Architectural Style-Jacksonian Era. Posted to the National Register of Historic Places on June 10, 1975. GPS: 40.10682°N, -84.54205°W.