Historic Mills of The Atlanta Area - White's Mill

White's Mill

In Atlanta. The mill was founded by John White in Dekalb county, and subsequently run by his sons. The facilities included a lumber mill as well as a grist mill located on what is now known as White's Mill Road, between Interstate 20 and Flat Shoals Road east of Atlanta. John White is buried at a small cemetery on Candler Road just south of I-20.

The Mill additionally had a cotton gin attached as a part of the family complex, and continued in operation until the mid 1900s. During the Civil War the mill served to supply large size timber to the Confederacy. One of John's sons, William Coker White, who was a lieutenant in the 42nd Georgia C.S.A. (Dekalb Rangers) along with his brother Nicolas, came home early in the war to help oversee this aspect of the operation. According to family oral tradition, the lumber was then hauled over to the Chattahoochee River by wagon (to Aderhold’s Ferry near present day Six Flags) and floated down to Columbus, Georgia where the larger timbers were used in the construction of armored gunboat frames. (Note that one of William’s sons (James Wesley) married one of the Aderhold girls, Alzie.) Quite naturally when Gen. William T. Sherman burned the city of Atlanta, he also found it advisable to burn much of the manufacturing infrastructure in the surrounding areas such as Dekalb County, including White's mill). After the war William Coker and his brother John Wesley rebuilt and continued to run the mill complex together. The economic circumstances after the war however, were such that all the members of the extended White families (John White had 16 children and each of these had their own households) could not rely upon the mill complex for support. Thus the family split up, with a number of White families (including William Coker White) moving as a group west of Atlanta to Haralson County, Georgia. William is buried in Pleasant Grove Church Cemetery in Haralson County along with a number of other members of the White family. John White is buried next to his second wife Nancy Mapp Wells and beside a cenotaph for his first wife Hetty Layfield.