ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 11, 1996 TAG: 9608120001
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV16 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: MOANUT AIRY
SOURCE: MARK THOMAS DANVILLE REGISTER & BEE
Roger Lawhorne is picking pieces of trash out of the hopper filled with white kernels of corn.
The kernels are trickling through the opening in the bottom, where they're ground between two millstones. Behind Lawhorne, a dry spray of sifted, light yellow meal comes down a long chute into a large wooden box.
As usual, it's dusty inside Cedar Forest Mill this morning. It's also sultry. The normal breeze that blows through the windows and doors is still. Lawhorne's shirt shines with perspiration.
With the mill's metal wheel turning round and round, it seems loud.
``It ain't bad,'' says Lawhorne, who's worked at the water-powered grist mill for a year. ``It's kind of quiet in here.''
A slight smile comes across his face.
On the wide-board floor are wooden barrels containing self-rising meal, plain flour and whole-wheat flour. On a table next to the door are about 80 white bags of flour, most of them weighing five pounds. Lawhorne says they're going to a wholesaler.
It's business as usual this morning at Cedar Forest Mill, tucked away in the rural countryside of northeast Pittsylvania County. While other mills are more museum-like, Cedar Forest is a business.
The mill is painted white with a faded red roof and stands against green trees and the brown water of wide Straightstone Creek.
Built in the 1880s, it's the only mill in the county making flour and corn meal on a commercial basis. Its current owner is Edward Lunsford.
``People's taste have changed,'' he said. Instead of making homemade biscuits, many buy a loaf of bread or a can of biscuits.
But it's not all bad. Lunsford notes that the lack of competition gives him his own niche. He has about all the work he can handle.
Cedar Forest turns out an average of 13,000 pounds of finished flour a month and at least another 1,000 pounds of corn meal.
Lunsford, 41, sells to restaurants and grocery stores. Country stores scattered throughout Halifax, Campbell and Pittsylvania counties sell the freshly ground flour and meal. He also sells it at the mill.
He sells feed for animals made from grinding wheat. A bushel of wheat weighs 60 pounds. He'll get 35 pounds of flour from it and 25 pounds of bran. In one part of the mill, 100-pound sacks of feed are stacked.
``It's something I was always fascinated with as a youngster,'' Lunsford answers when asked how he got into the mill business. He remembers visiting Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway. He liked seeing the wheel turn over and over. He used to spend much of his summers at a small mill in nearby Brookneal, his hometown.
Lunsford's father ran a feed mill, hardware and farm supply business.
Lunsford has owned Cedar Forest since 1975.
Cedar Forest is one of a few mills left in all of Virginia.
In Virginia, estimated Julie Grimes, editorial services manager for the Virginia Division of Tourism, about a half-dozen water-powered grist mills still make flour and meal.
Local historian and author Herman Melton said eight mills still stand in Pittsylvania County; only three still operate as they were originally designed to.
Lunsford said the potential of a mill being washed away in a flood is another reason for the decline, along with the chance of fire. The dry and dusty conditions and the amount of wood in a mill make them fire hazards.
At Cedar Forest, Lunsford has no plans to do anything different. He's even thought of expanding, especially for wheat storage, but isn't sure about putting that much money into it.
Just like when he was a boy, Lunsford still has a fascination with watching the wheel turn.
``It's still got kind of a hold on me,'' he admitted.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB