CHILDERSBURG — The Kymulga Grist Mill has severe structural damage to its foundation, threatening to drop the mill into the waters of Talladega Creek.Fundraising efforts to save the grist mill have been implemented for the past several months, after the Childersburg Heritage Committee received a $98,000 federal dollar-for-dollar match grant in December 2007.
Signs are up around the Childersburg community. Local businesses like Peking Garden in Sylacauga have donation jars on their counters. And the Heritage Committee has been thinking of ideas to raise the money like supplying the corn meal and grits for the upcoming Coosa Fest cornbread and grits cook-off contest, and selling copies of a picture by local artist Shirley Pody for a $100 donation.
Wednesday morning, Luther Crowe, president of the Heritage Committee, met with Talladega County Probate Judge Billy Atkinson, Childersburg Chamber of Commerce President Pete Storey, marketing manager and regional director with the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel Grey Brennan and Talladega County Schools’ elementary coordinator Louis Brook, to talk about ways promote the grist mill and raise awareness of its condition.
The group talked about packaging the still-operational mill as part of a local tourism stop, to include DeSoto Caverns and the Butler Harris Rainwater Museum, and having local schools bring students to the mill and surrounding park for educational field trips.
But until the committee raises the needed matching funds, those plans may never come to fruition.
The committee currently has $7,000 in its special account for the funds, approximately 7 percent of the needed matching funding for the grant, which was awarded as part of H.R. 2764 Consolidated Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2008 that was approved by Congress on Dec. 19, 2007.
Dean Ingram, a consultant for the Childersburg Heritage Committee, said Wednesday that she was told in a phone conversation about the grant, and that it will expire two to three years after its inception. By that estimation, the Heritage Committee could no longer be eligible to receive the grant money it was awarded as early as December 2009 if the needed match money is not raised.
Vedet Coleman, a grants management specialist for the Historic Preservation Grant Division of the National Parks Service, could not be reached to comment about the estimated timetable for the grant. She is the one who sent a letter to Ingram outlining the steps the committee must take, including raising the matching money and submitting a detailed work plan that summarizes what the money will accomplish,
Safety concerns
In an article published in the Tuesday, July 29 edition of The Daily Home, Crowe said that both a contractor and architect had been to the mill to survey the structural damage, but “neither had given a cost estimate for the repairs.” However, at least one cost estimate was done as early as 2006, and it outlined serious problems with the structure.
The Heritage Committee commissioned Bob Barnett, a structural engineer with Barnett, Jones and Wilson LLC in Pell City to conduct a survey of the damage in 2006.
Barnett sent a letter about his findings to the committee on May 17, 2006, and followed that up on July 24, 2006 with a work summary and preliminary cost estimate, based on labor and material prices at that time.
In his assessment of the below-ground structure of the mill, he said, “Most of the damage consists of rot and termite infestations.” He went on to say that some of the supporting columns have large sections of rotten wood, while others in the center section have completely deteriorated. Also, many of the main structural members are compressed, and “there are also areas where there is a loss of support under the foundations.”
“My major concern is that the building could become unstable and experience a catastrophic failure,” Barnett said in the letter. “These conditions have to be addressed immediately. Failure to make the repairs could cause a loss of the structure.”
Barnett said in the letter he recommended not using the building during high water, and limiting the number of people inside the mill to 10 or fewer at one time until the structure has been stabilized.
In his work summary and preliminary estimate, Barnett’s cost for the work he outlined, which includes diverting the stream, providing temporary shoring for the building, building new foundations and installing new support members, totaled $808,000 two years ago.
“Typically, properly constructed buildings give ample warning that they are failing,” Barnett continued in the letter. “The structure has been warning its owners for some time that it is distressed and is failing. It simply cannot be ignored any longer.”
Barnett sent that letter to the committee more than two years ago.
Crowe said he is trying to follow guidelines Barnett gave for the capacity of tourists inside the grist mill.
“We put 10-12 people in at a time,” Crowe said, adding that if the group is 20-25 people, they are spilt up into separate groups to tour the mill.
“Then again, it may not be safe,” he said.
Crowe said the committee could not afford to complete the project as outlined by Barnett.
Joseph Wesley, an architect at Wesley and Associates in Talladega, has been working with the Heritage Committee, looking for solutions to repair the damages.
“We’re looking into several different options,” Wesley said.
Those options could include, according to Crowe, damming off water from the creek and pouring a concrete foundation underneath the structure and putting beams under that to hold up the mill.
He said the structure is settling to one side and water is running through the foundation and the mill itself.
Wesley said they have diverted some of the water using rocks, but said the water still goes under the mill during heavy rains.
“(We’re) trying to figure what’s most important to fix to save the structure,” Wesley said.
