The World's Most Beautiful Places
Beck’s Mill is a historic gristmill in Washington County, Indiana, near the city of Salem. The mill was originally built in 1808, and rebuilt in 1864. For a brief time during the Civil War it was threatened with destruction, along with the other mills in Washington County, by John Hunt Morgan, the commanding general of a group of confederate soldiers known as Morgan’s Raiders, that passed through Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio between June 11 to July 26, 1863.
The Spring Mill pioneer village was founded in 1814, to take advantage of water flowing from the surrounding Mitchell Karst Plateau that never froze, and in particular a spring originating in Hamer Cave west of the village that is the source of the creek that flows through the village center. The restored village contains 20 historic buildings, and originally included several gristmills, a wool mill, a saw mill, and a distillery. The surviving grist mill still produces corn mill to this day.
The park, at 1,358 acres includes a memorial to Gus Grisom, a famous NASA astronaut who was a member of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs, and a native of Mitchell, Indiana. There also a number of karst-related caves and sinkholes, in addition to Hamer, including – Donaldson (Shawnee), and Twin Caves. The latter is large enough to offer an underground boat tour during the summer months.
Part of the park preserves an old growth forest and is protected as part of the Donaldson Woods Nature Preserve.
Indiana DNR – Spring Mill State Park