M.A. Kleen

Graham’s Forge Mill is a late-19th-century grist mill in the tiny community of Grahams Forge, Wythe County, Virginia, built around 1890 as the third mill on this long-used industrial site. Rising five stories on a limestone foundation, its flaking whitewashed boards, weathered gray walls, tall narrow windows, broad eaves with a paneled frieze, and rusting tin roof give it an unexpectedly elegant Victorian character. A small cupola with star details and decorative cresting crowns the roofline, hinting at a time when even work buildings were dressed with style. Surrounding outbuildings, including a smokehouse, corn crib, grain storage, and mill dam, survive alongside much of the mill’s original machinery. The property stands on a site first developed as Crockett Forge in 1796, later Graham’s Forge, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.