IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK
By John Gretka
Like a sleeping giant, the Ashburn Mill sits at the very heart of the community. A huge complex of structures totaling more than 9,000 square feet just off Ashburn Road, it’s currently empty – newly refurbished and awaiting the right tenant or tenants.
Ashburn Magazine asked local historian and Ashburn Village resident John Gretka to do a deep dive into the mill’s century-long history.
Located in Ashburn’s Historic District, the Ashburn Mill consists of several buildings on the east side of Ashburn Road, behind the Carolina Brothers BBQ restaurant and south of the Washington and Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail.
The mill is the end result of the construction of two warehouses on this site – with additions by many different businesses – over a period of more than 100 years. One of the warehouses dates to around 1903 and the other to around 1913.
Originally known as the Hutchison Brothers Mill, the foundation of the structure is a combination of cinderblock and brick, and the exterior walls are covered with board-and-batten siding.
Board-and-batten is characterized by wide boards with smaller, narrow boards covering the seams between the wider boards. The current owner has painted the Ashburn Mill a light grey color, but over the decades it has also been painted red, and later green.
The story of the mill is inextricably linked to the construction of the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad, later known as the W&OD Railroad.
In 1859, Dr. George Lee granted the railroad a right-of-way across his plantation. That plantation went by the name Farmwell. On the north side of the railway, immediately east of what was then known as Ox Road (now Ashburn Road), the railroad constructed a station that was called Farmwell Station.
On January 16,1860, daily round-trip service began connecting the new station with Alexandria. Initially, the railroad only operated as far west as Farmwell Station. Passengers headed to Leesburg, Winchester and other points farther west had to transfer to horse-drawn coaches. It wasn’t until four months later – May 17, 1860 – that train service on to Leesburg started.
In the years after the Farmwell Station railway stop opened, various businesses, including a grain mill, were built near the station. In 1871, Sally Lee sold the railroad some additional land near the station, and it was here that the warehouses that would become the Ashburn Mill were constructed.
In his book “Loudoun Discovered,” historian Eugene Scheel writes that during the 1870s and 1880s, the Kendrick family operated a general merchandise store and steam-powered feed mill at the site of the present Ashburn Mill.
Scheel goes on to report that in 1903 a new mill built by the Hutchinson brothers – Lawrence and Lucius – replaced the previous mill. Reports of the era say this new mill was one of the best flour mills in the entire region.
“It has every modern requirement in the way of machinery, and its shipping and receiving regulations are perfect,” a 1909 publication from the then Loudoun Mirror newspaper reads. “They are manufacturers of corn meal, feed and grits, and dealers in fertilizers, agricultural implements and farmers’ supplies of all kinds. The trade extends throughout the county and continues to spread in all directions.”
It goes on to say, “Dealers with this house will find that the goods purchased here are of an excellent quality and the prices the very lowest.”
By 1914, a 30-foot by 60-foot warehouse building had been constructed next to the Hutchinson Bros. mill for the Alexandria Fertilizer Company. This building would later become part of the mill building we see today.
In 1917, W.S. Jenkins Grain Co. bought the operation of the Hutchison brothers and in the 1920s, the mill’s power source was switched from steam to electricity.
According to a report in the Washington Herald newspaper in December 1921, there was a break-in at the Ashburn Mill.
“Burglars broke into the elevator of the W. S. Jenkins Grain Company, at Ashburn, Loudoun County, seven miles east of here, Tuesday night, and made an unsuccessful attempt to rob the large iron safe in the office. It is not known whether they knew the combination or whether the manager had forgotten to lock the safe. The door was opened and a steel vault inside, weighing about 800 pounds, was taken out and placed on the floor.”
The article continued, “It contained $120, all the cash remaining in the office after the afternoon remittance to the main office here. Apparently, the burglars were amateurs, as they undertook to break the vault with mill picks found on the premises. No impression was made on the steel and nothing was missing.”
Over the next several decades, the mill changed hands several times and in 1957, the then-owner – the Ashburn Milling Company – constructed a storage building east of the mill building. It provided space for an estimated 500 tons of bulk and bagged fertilizer. That building is now a garage on the property.
In that same year, the Blue Ridge Herald newspaper reported that the Ashburn Mill installed a new high-powered, automatic feed mixer. The mixer ground and mixed up to four tons of feed an hour.
On Dec. 30, 1972, the owners of the Ashburn Mill closed it. A few years later it became a farm supply company that lasted for roughly a decade.
In 1986, the Olde Mill Furniture Company – initially called the Oak Barn of Ashburn – opened in the mill. The company sold a variety of home furnishings. At that time, the building was sometimes referred to as “The Red Barn,” due to the color of its exterior. It was later repainted and was sometimes then called “The Green Barn” thanks to its new hue.
In September 2016, the Olde Mill Furniture Company closed. The mill was sold several times in the subsequent years. From 2018 until 2021, a portion of the building was the home of A New View, a home decor shop that was featured here in Ashburn Magazine in 2020. A New View has since moved to a new location just down the road.
The current owner hopes to find one – or even several new businesses – to occupy the space at the Ashburn Mill. A restaurant and bar would be ideal, but so would a landscaping company or an autobody shop or many other commercial uses.
Time will tell. In the meanwhile, the old mill sits and waits for the next chapter in its history to be written.
(Note: The full title of Eugene Scheel’s book “Loudoun Discovered” referenced in this article is: “Loudoun Discovered – Communities, Corners & Crossroads. Volume One: Eastern Loudoun: ‘Goin’ Down the Country.’”)