Cable Mill Historic Area & Cades Cove Visitor Center

Cable Mill Historic Area One of the most popular stops on the Cades Cove tour is the one at Cable Mill.  Corn meal and molasses are sometimes available. Of course the main attraction of the Cable Mill area is the outdoor displays. The Cable Mill is definitely one of the most historic pieces in Cades Cove. Mills were important to the people of Cades Cove, and entire homesteads were centered around their ability to use the mills. Since...

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Sorghum Mill

In the Great Smoky Mountains the settlers had several sources of sweetener including maple syrup, honey and maple sugar. Besides these was a very dark sweet syrup called molasses. To the Smoky Mountain pioneers molasses was pretty good especially on corn bread with a little butter. The sorghum mill was the means by which the molasses was made in the Cades Cove. Molasses begins as sorghum cane which is stripped of leaves and then fed...

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John P. Cable Mill

In Cades Cove there were few sources of power which the frontiersman knew how to harness. One of those power sources was the water wheel such as drove the early grist mills. Cable Mill is one of those. The Smoky Mountains Natural History Association keeps Cable Mill running in Cades Cove to teach the Smoky Mountain visitor a little about life in the 1800’s. The mill is operated April-October. A handful of enterprising residents...

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