Stockdale Mill

The last remaining business from the near-ghost town of Stockdale, the Stockdale Mill stands as a testament to the region's rich farming and industrial heritage. Its intricate wood-and-stone mechanisms have assisted generations of farmers in turning crops into valuable products using the latent power of the winding Eel River. Relatively unchanged from its heyday, even the mill's original builders and first customers would recognize it today.

Though pieces have been replaced when they rot or degrade, the majority of components in the mill are still original, either from its years of operation or its first construction in 1857. Ropes and pulleys well over a century old hang from the same beams that comprised the original skeleton of the facility, and gears animated by the 200-foot dam still turn on creaking axles just as old. 

Visitors who throw themselves back in time inside the mill can tour all three floors and see firsthand how it works—works, not worked, as the mill still functions. Those same visitors can even purchase whole-wheat flour or corn meal produced at the dam after they've wandered its halls. 

The only truly new element of the entire facility is the fish ladder added to the dam in 2017 through a collaboration with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Department and Manchester University Environmental Sciences Program. The first of its kind installed in the U.S., this fish ladder can be navigated by fish as small as a couple of inches, helping to offset the impediment the dam puts on Eel River ecology.