Remnants of Another Time

Written By: Deena Bouknight | Issue: March 2024

Just a few miles from Highlands on Dillard Road, going down Scaly Mountain toward Georgia, is a small log, cedar-shingled roof structure situated close to the road. Generations of Highlanders and visitors alike have probably breezed past the property without a thought. However, the deteriorating landmark is worthy of highlighting – due to the rich history that occurred there.

Lick Log Mill Store, circa 1851, was one of countless roadside stores that primarily serviced people living in walking, horseback riding, or buggy/wagon distance. These stores enabled people to buy and trade for goods they otherwise may not have been able to make or had access to like woven fabrics, medicines, nails, sewing needles, cast-iron cookware, farming accoutrements, and more. But these basic provisional establishments were also often connected to or in sight of a grist mill, situated on an adjacent stream, so that people could bring wheat and corn for grinding into meal and flour.

Such was the case of the Lick Log Mill Store, and perusing the grounds provides evidence of a time when plenty of locals must have sat on the porch bench to “catch up” and share news, play dulcimers, banjos, and fiddles, and trade recipes. Its stone steps are worn by many a leather-soled shoe and boot. An aging, moss-covered wagon wheel is propped against logs still holding their chinking. And the mill’s rotating gear lies like a mystic bridge over the small stream, whose waters once turned it for grinding.

The demand for milling grain for use as flour or meal grew as the population of North Carolina increased,” according to the Encyclopedia of North Carolina. And the population most definitely began to rise in and around Highlands in the mid- and latter-1800s, as the bordering states of South Carolina and Georgia advertised the beneficial climate and mountainous beauty – especially during sweltering summer months indicative of their lowland states.

Ran Shaffner’s comprehensive Heart of the Blue Ridge, Highlands, North Carolina history book features one of those advertisements, published in a Greenville, S.C., “Daily News, Pamphlet and Law Press” (1876). It assured readers that Highlands had “no better climate in the world for health, comfort, and enjoyment …” and that there were “no grasshoppers, chinch bugs, canker worm, or musquitoes [spelling at the time] …” to worry about.

Thus, stores and mills like Lick Log sprang up. A hand-carved sign on rough-hewn wood affixed to the front of Lick Log reads: “This cabin was built by an early settler of North Carolina in 1851. The logs were hewn by hand with a Broad Axe out of White Pine 10 years before the Civil War. The building has been restored [time period unknown] in memory of our Pioneers.”

While the store operated for many years as it was intended, offering essential goods for residents nearby, in modernity it became a retailer of antiques and primarily Appalachian handcrafted items as well as craft supplies. Although little information was accessible via recent research, the property seems to have been purchased and the store operated by a Florida-based family, but it closed sometime around 2013-14. Today, it appears long forgotten.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on one’s perspective), no megastores exist on the Plateau, but retailing has changed drastically since the 19th and early 20th century. Lick Log Mill Store – despite its waning appearance – offers a glimpse back to a simpler time, yet a time when a rural roadside store met important and sundry social and practical needs.