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Avalon Today (Fall of 2000)
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Travelling on Business Highway 220 just north of Mayodan, the only
evidence of Avalon now is a large sign that reads, "Available, 520
acres." Behind the sign is a hint of a gravel road, which travels
out of sight within a few feet. The land slopes downward beyond the
sign. It is grown up with weeds and briars too tall to see through.
Rising tall in the distance is Cedar Mountain; above that is only
endless sky. This looks like the typical scene off the side of a
country road, a place home to only wild creatures. However,
there is more to this place than meets the eye.
A walk along the road to Avalon on a splendid fall afternoon is a walk back through time. Knowing the history of the place, you can almost hear the gleeful shouts of children, the more subdued tones of their elders, and the hum of the mill in the distance. Looking left as you follow the road, you imagine seeing the houses, a quaint country store, and the steeple of the church rising up from the high weeds. Wide dirt streets lined with tall old oak trees separate the rows of houses. The closer you get to the edge of town, the more you wish you could really see it the way it was then. After passing the town site, you cross the train tracks and walk a couple hundred yards through the woods. Suddenly a tin roof is visible through the trees. At first glance you wonder if you're walking 
toward someone's house. The closer you get, however, the more you
realize that this building is not a residence at all. High arched
windows adorn its sides, windows that would have been opened to
cool the place a hundred years ago. Today these windows
are filled in with cinderblocks. This was once the
Machine Shop behind the mill and now houses a Duke
Power facility. Even though the place always looks
deserted, evidence of tire tracks around the building suggests that
someone is here on occasion to check on things.
Before you come out of the woods to the wide clearing where the
mill once stood, you begin to hear a steady hum. As you look to the
left, you see a towering structure made of huge granite rocks.
This is the bulkhead, which was (and is) used to strain tree
branches, leaves and other debris out of the canal. Water flows
through from the backside of the bulkhead (not seen from where you
are now) underneath where the mill was, beneath the machine shop
and back into the river. The humming you hear is the electric motor
and gearbox that runs the rakes which clean debris off the
grate on the bulkhead inlet.
As you explore the clearing between the bulkhead and machine shop,
you can find plenty of evidence that something was once here. Large
chunks of brick wall are scattered haphazardly. Sadly, these pieces
are all that remain of the walls that were left standing after the
fire. Gigantic steel tanks, have been pushed almost into the woods
nearby. They lay at all angles, rusty and pitted from age. There are
many pieces, some half-buried in the ground, of what may have been
machinery parts. If you walk along beside the machine shop, you can
follow what's left of the mill's back wall. Once past the machine shop,
the bricks are barely visible under the grass and form a sort of path
toward one of the huge tanks. Walking along this "path", you find
yourself wanting to measure the distance between the shop and the tank.
If it is 185 feet, then you can have some certainty that the tank near
the woods is still in its original place. There is a path to the left
of the clearing that goes up the hill toward the bulkhead. At the top
of this path, you can walk directly onto the top of the bulkhead. A railing
has been put up for safety, allowing you to lean against it and look
down at the mill site and machine shop. The bulkhead is quite tall
and massive. Looking down, you see that its rock walls are gently
sloped outward. There are only three walls. The fourth side is
where the canal enters the structure. At the top of the bulkhead, you
follow the railing from the path to the front of the structure and then
to its third side. Another path off this side leads to a narrow strip of land,
bordered on the left by the canal and on the right by a sharp drop-off. If you
follow this strip of land about 1/3 mile away from the mill site, you find yourself
at the edge of the dam.
The dam is a massive structure composed of the same huge rocks as the bulkhead. Water from the river is dammed and channeled into the canal here. There is evidence of some leakage through the rock walls of the dam. It is amazing to think that the structure has not crumbled over the years from the pressure of the water, that something built by hand so long ago is still holding strong. On every visit to Avalon we notice something we haven't seen before. There are so many things still there to see if you just open your eyes and look. We have heard the simple story of Avalon many times, usually told in the same way. It is said so often that "nothing is left" and that Avalon is "just a memory". Out of what began as curiosity, we discovered that nothing is further from the truth. The spirit of Avalon is still very much alive. Sadly, Avalon has been more or less forgotten as the generations have passed. Our goal with this website is to preserve this part of our history and to somehow keep the spirit alive. |
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