McBee's Mills
Reedy River Falls Historic Park
Vardry McBee purchased more than 11,000 acres around the Reedy River from Lemuel Alston in 1815. Although McBee lived in Lincolnton, North Carolina, he wished to develop his Greenville property, and in 1819 he build a "superior" brick corn mill on the south bank of the Reedy River. In 1829 he added a stone grist mill. The mills attracted farmers from miles around who brought their wheat and corn to be ground by miller Elias Alexander, McBee's brother-in-law, who lived in a cottage above the river. Both mills were dilapidated by the early twentieth century. The stone mill was dismantled to build the Gassaway Mansion in the mid 1920s. One wall of the brick mill remains beneath the Camperdown Bridge.
Marker can be reached from South Main Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
