Back to the old grind: after 244 years in business, old Mill of Guilford still stays current, harnessing water power or create fresh products.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: PLCTURE THIS - Old Mill of Guilford

Gravity moves the water, water moves the wheel. The technology was the same more than 240 years ago when the Old Mill of Guilford was built on Beaver Creek, five miles north of what's now Piedmont triad International Airport in Greensboro. It's a labor of muscle, ingenuity and art, as were other water-powered mills, once common but now rare in America. This mill still churns because when demand for its services faded in the 1970s, it morphed into a tourism destination that still grinds for specialty-market clientele.

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"The mill was built in 1767 and moved across the road to its present position in the early 1800s," says Annie Laura Perdue, miller here for more than 40 years. "They took the pegs out of these gigantic beams, moved everything and put it back together. They moved the giant rocks in the foundation with brute force and block and tackle." When they reassembled it, builders used no mortar between foundation stones, owner Amy Klug says. "If the creek floods, water just washes through it, which keeps the water from pushing it over."

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Through the years, the mill's technology changed. First, it used water-turbine wheels, which direct flow under the mill to turn blades. Next came steam. Now it uses an overshot wheel, a medieval principle using the weight of water on the rim to turn the mill wheel. The inside, scented by flour and meal, is an industrial symphony: Cogs gently rumble, while heavy belts swish as they propel corn, wheat and rice under millstones for grinding.

If its technology has adapted, so has Old Guilford's business model. Before the American Revolution, mills were built on streams close to communities. Millers kept a portion of meal or flour as payment. "We still have the toll bucket," Klug says. Now, in a typical week the mill grinds 1,000 pounds of locally grown grain. The products are sold in the onsite store, by mail and in bulk to restaurants and retailers such as Mast General Store in Valle Crucis, near Boone.

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Popular products are unbleached flour at $5 for 5 pounds, corn...