The Cleanup

It has taken awhile, over two years in fact, but Mike Harmon and his partners of Cliffside Mill LLC are finally in the short rows of the big demolition project, tearing down the old mill. On October 14, 2006, Cliffside Day weekend, we took a tour of the site, made a bunch of photos, and are happy to report that things are shaping up nicely. The turbines in the power plant were humming along, men on heavy equipment were at work making the site into something else. What that something is, we won’t know for awhile. A study is underway to determine what would work best as a viable commercial undertaking.

But most of the area over which the old mill stood is now fresh dirt, soon to be planted in grass, and what piles of salvaged material and debris remain will be hauled away. And, for awhile, the acres will again be home to birds and critters, like it was over a century ago.

If you ever worked in the mill, look for old equipment that might have been around when you were. That large lathe still sits in the space that used to be the machine shop, although now it’s out of doors.