Historic Marker Information
Location:
1791 Oak Grove Road
Westville, FL 32464
Marker Inscription:
Near this location, Marion Alford established in 1864 a water-powered grist mill that became the focal point of a small farming community that developed in this area of north Walton County. Archaeological remains of the mill dam and foundations still exist along Limestone Creek. Mills played a very important role in the growth of rural Florida communities in the nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries. Alford’s Mill provided corn meal, a staple of the local diet, and a gathering place for those who lived and worked in the nearby forests and fields. The community, known as Alford’s Mill until the early 1880s when the settlement was renamed Limestone, also included a post office and stage coach stop, churches, cemeteries, homesteads and farms. In 1883, the mill was sold to the Chandlers who operated the facility until 1893 when the Alford family reacquired the grist mill. In 1897 Alford’s Mill was converted to a sawmill which operated until 1904, when the mill at last fell silent as the age of water-power came to an end.