When we moved here and began to explore a bit, I discovered the dam and waterfall in the middle of town and I knew we’d found the right place. Any town with a river running through it had to be a good one.
The dam is directly across from our Revolutionary (and earlier) Cemetery alongside the remnants of a huge cotton mill. It burned down 16 years ago. The smokestack and a small part of the mill that was brick are what’s left.
I remember the fire. The old mill had been turned into place to work for artists, woodworkers, carpenters, a shop which designed saddles and bridles plus a children’s gymnasium. It was fortunate for everyone the fire broke out at night when no one was in the building.
Like most two hundred year old wooden structures, Bernat Mills went up in a near explosion. It took five weeks to finally put out all the hot cinders. Every fire department and volunteer in the valley was on duty day and night. It was an enormous, exhausting fire. One of the results of that fire was they stopped trying to repurpose old wooden mills. Now, they remove them. There were too many fires. While this one hadn’t cost lives, many others had cost civilian and firefighter’s lives.
Most of the old stone and brick mills have been successfully turned into senior housing, city centers, senior centers, and shopping areas and at least one is now a small TV station, but the old wooden buildings are gone either by fire or intent.
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Categories: #FallFoliage, #foliage, #GarryArmstrong, #Photography, square
SERENDIPITY: SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
wow these are just gorgeous shots, and I agree about a town with a river!
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Beautiful autumn photos. I like that Garry caught you chimping on your camera. 😀 😀
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I think for both of us, most of our pictures have us with a camera. In my case, as often as not I’m trying to convince the menu to do what I want it to and not what IT seems to want to do. I really love my cameras, but I yearn for a well-written manual that tells me exactly WHAT THOSE SETTING MEAN and how they work with other settings. Because you can change a setting, but if you change one setting, it inevitably alters the way another setting works. It’s all CONTEXT and that’s where a really well-written manual would make a huge difference. Sigh. The kind of manual I used to write! Looking back on the work I did I think I wasn’t paid nearly enough.
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I’ve been a tech writer too. And manuals for anything technical just doesn’t happen anymore. 😀 😀
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