This charming mill in Landrum dates to the 1820s and was built by George Wallace Huet Lewis Dickey, who owned 2,100 acres in North and South Carolina. Dickey was a plantation owner and also operated a sawmill and gristmill. Following the Civil War, the land was acquired by a family named Green. Dickey died in 1868, so it is possible that the transfer happened following Dickey’s death. The mill and surrounding property then became Green’s Mill.
It wasn’t until nearly a century later, in 1960, that the mill was purchased by J.L. Ballenger and became known as Ballenger’s Mill. The property sits along the Middle Tyger River, which once powered the mill. Ballenger Mill became part of Willow Creek Conservatory, a wedding venue which included a wedding chapel, at some point near the turn of the twenty-first century. However, this venue is no longer in operation. Today the bucolic property encompasses 47 acres.
More Pictures of Ballenger Mill
I’m baffled by the description of this mill. I have been told by at least 3 Ballenger relatives who live in the area that this mill was owned and operated by Tinsley Ballenger, who lived nearby. He lived from 1816 to 1909. One of them described to me working at the mill as a child. There was a house on the corner of Old Ballenger Mill Road and Highway 44 that was pointed out to me by two different relatives at the house that Tinsley lived in. Looking at the satellite view on Google Maps, that house does not seem to exist any more, although I saw it as recently as 2000 or perhaps 2004. It was in bad condition at that time. It looks like a new house has been built on the site.
Hi Norman! Thank you for your comment. I have checked online and in all of our printed resources about both Greenville County and South Carolina mills, but I was unable to find any information about Ballenger’s ownership or, oddly, much about the mill at all. Our source gives J.L. Ballenger credit for buying the mill, but there is no primary record listed to verify this information. Going through the family’s ancestry, there appear to have been an abundance of Ballengers with the initials J.L. – including but perhaps not limited to John Lawrence, John Lewis, and James Lewis. However, none of their lifespans coincided with the mill’s 1960 purchase either. Your relatives may well be correct that a man named Tinsley Ballenger purchased it instead of J.L. Ballenger. Although the Tinsley Ballenger you write of died before the Ballenger’s ownership, we were able to find a Royce Tinsley Ballenger who lived from roughly 1910 until 2007. If he went by his middle name, he would have been in his 50s at the time of purchase. However, we have no way of knowing this for sure. If you could check with your relatives and provide any other information, we would be grateful! We’d like to get this right. We also invite any other readers to weigh in!
Can you still visit this mill, or is it exclusively a private wedding venue now?
Can a part of this be used for a small wedding? If so, who is the contact?
We are not affiliated with this landmark, but from online searches, it appears that the owners no longer offer weddings.
Do you have weddings here? If so what is the charge?