June 2010

Watauga River at Shulls Mills

This is the Watauga River in the Shulls Mills area. Dont' know how long this piece of boiler has been here, but it doesn't look like it's been there for 50 years. Perhaps it was washed downstream from a Boone Fork Lumber operation during floods in the past few years? The Boone Fork Lumber mill at Shulls Mills has been gone since about 1920 or so, and this was not in a place to where it could have been from that mill. So the only explanation was that it came from upstream. There's so little left that shows that a mill was ever here, this was a nice surprise. Kyle Grove, noted Shulls Mills historian, turned us on to this on our Sunday right-of-way excursion.