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Although
the Shaw Cabin, now located at the Log Cabin Village, Fort Worth, Texas,
was not originally a gristmill, both the structure and the machinery found
inside date back to the 19th century and are of historical importance.
The Shaw gristmill is one of the few working gristmills remaining in the
state of Texas. The well-known Thomas Shaw, a pioneer who was recognized
for his log cabin building ability, built the cabin for his family in
1854. The one-room house was originally one of the best-constructed log
homes on the Texas frontier. Because of his exemplary skills as a carpenter
and house builder displayed in his cabin, Shaw soon became widely known
throughout the county. It was with his help that many inexperienced homesteaders
were able to erect log homes. The 160-acres site on which Shaw constructed
his house was pre-empted at fifty cents an acre and was located on the
extreme frontier in an area that came to be known as the Spring Creek
community in Parker County, Texas. When first erected, not another Anglo
settlement was west of this cabin, and only five miles away a large group
of Tonkawa Indians camped along the Brazos River. After more than a century
of use, first as a home, then as a bunkhouse, and finally as a storage
barn, the cabin was relocated to the Log Cabin Village in Fort Worth,
where it is being preserved and interpreted as a gristmill for educational
purposes. A waterwheel and a stone wall were added to the original structure
when the mill was set up. The overshot waterwheel is 25' in diameter,
281/2" wide. The milling equipment, manufactured in the 1860s, came from
a small mill, which had been in continuous use by the Smith family for
over seventy years in the little town of Moline, Texas. During the mid
to late 1800s, the family milled for farmers in and around Moline. After
the turn of the century, the millstones were mostly idle, used only occasionally
until 1930 to grind meal for the family or special friends. Then, forty
years after it had completely stopped operating, the City of Fort Worth
purchased and installed it in the Shaw home. Since 1970, the Shaw gristmill
has delivered fresh, warm, and ready to use cornmeal, crushed by the same
millstones and in the same fashion of over a century ago.