Upstream: Ritter’s Falls

Up Fall Creek: Brady Mill

Up Bear Creek: Reynolds Mill

50-3 High Falls Dam

Downstream: NC 22 Bridge (High Falls)

The minutes of the Cumberland County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions contain the following entry dated 28 April 1780. "William England granted permission to build a grist mill on the Great Falls of Deep River on his own land."

One hundred years later, there was no dam here (Swain 1880), but by 1899 N. D. Woody and Sons had been impounded the 3/8 mile long shoal with a 4 foot high dam, creating 15 feet of fall at the mill.

The Moore Co Chamber of Commerce reports that Thomas Woody began the High Falls Manufacturing Company in 1904, consisting of a spinning mill, a cotton mill, and a gristmill.

The current dam is much taller than 4 feet and partly concrete, so it must have been greatly modified in the early 20th century. How tall was this dam according to Saville (1924)?

Today, the textile mill is closed, but Hydrodyne Industries still generates hydroelectric power. The huge abandoned textile mill building still stands on river left. Aerial photographs seem to show the ruins of three dams below the current one.