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Businesses, mills and venues

Lloyd grist mill (Broad Street)

In Carrboro. 7 dated events, 1883–1981.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

People in its history

Indexed works

Books, articles, records and pictures in the index about Lloyd grist mill, found by its names in titles, catalog subjects and the index’s descriptions, and read one by one. Those held at OCPL come first.

About the site

Lloyd Grist Mill in Chapel Hill

Undated photograph of the Lloyd Grist Mill in Chapel Hill. An accompanying note places the old mill near the depot and says it went up some time after the University Railroad station was built.

DigitalNC DPLA

Lloyd Grist Mill: photographs (Chapel Hill Historical Society)

Lloyd Grist Mill in an undated photograph of the building's front, one of the business photographs in the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection (CHHS.002).

CH Historical Society

Surveys and maps of the area

Not about Lloyd grist mill alone: the architectural surveys that cover its town or the county, and maps drawn while it stood. Several of the surveys can be read free online at NC Digital Collections.

Carrboro Map [1935]

1935

Hand-drawn map of Carrboro from about 1935, centered on Greensboro Avenue and Weaver Street and marking buildings, lots and the main roads.

DigitalNC DPLA

Map of Chapel Hill-Carrboro, N.C.

Gove, John R. · 1958 · Chapel Hill-Carrboro Merchants Association

Robert J. Ayers drew this folding map of Chapel Hill and Carrboro using data gathered by John R. Gove; the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Merchants Association published it under a 1954 copyright. The 1958 printing shows the towns, the University, streets, creeks and country clubs. On the back is text for the Chapel Hill School Art Guild house tour of 30 October 1960, with eleven houses marked in red.

UNC State Archives of NC

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

Start at OCPL

    Where to look on the shelf

    These books don’t necessarily mention Lloyd grist mill, but they cover where it stands, its kind of building and the land, family and burial records behind it, and they are where a search for a place like this usually goes next. All are at OCPL, most in the Wall Collection.

    Histories of the town and county

    • Rebecca Wall Collection · 975.656 OTTO Carrboro Otto, David · 2011

      Pictorial history of Carrboro in Arcadia's Images of America series by David A. Otto and Richard Ellington, published in 2011. Its 127 pages of photographs, maps, facsimiles and portraits cover the town's history, social life and African American community, with a bibliography and index.

    • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 975.656 OTTO Carrboro Otto, David · 2015

      Second Images of America volume on Carrboro by David A. Otto and Richard Ellington (Arcadia, 2015). Chapters follow the town from mill village to growing urban center, then turn to its merchants, the arts, festivals, changing demographics and changing architecture, in 95 illustrated pages.

    • Foundational · 975.656 RYAN Orange County Trio: Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, North Carolina, Histories and Tour Guides Ryan, Elizabeth Shreve · 2004

      Elizabeth Shreve Ryan's combined histories and tour guides for Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the three towns of Orange County, with the University of North Carolina treated alongside Chapel Hill. Each town gets a narrative history and a tour of its streets and buildings. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2004, 369 pages with illustrations and maps.

    Buildings and surveys

    • Foundational · NC 720.975 BIS A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina Bishir, Catherine W. · 2003

      Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern's field guide to the historic buildings of the North Carolina Piedmont, arranged county by county from Wake and Franklin in the east to Mecklenburg and Gaston in the west. The Orange County section takes in Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro along with the rural county, with entries on individual buildings and maps for finding them. Published 2003, 596 pages with illustrations and maps.

    • Start here · NC 720.975 BRO Carrboro, N.C: An Architectural & Historical Inventory Brown, Claudia Roberts · 1983

      Architectural and historical inventory of Carrboro by Claudia Roberts Brown, published in 1983 by the Carrboro Appearance Commission and the town. The 48-page survey, with illustrations and maps, documents the town's historic buildings and their conservation.

    • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 621.21 HOB Exploring the Old Mills of North Carolina Hobbs, Grimsley T. · 1985

      Grimsley T. Hobbs's oblong guide to the old water mills of North Carolina, with drawings by Kate Russell Forbes, published in 1985 by Provincial Press of Chapel Hill in 80 pages. The same press also published guides to the Piedmont and to the state's country inns.

    In the chronology

    1. Thomas Lloyd and William Pritchard build a grist mill and cotton gin at the West End depot Thomas F. Lloyd, a Confederate veteran, and his partner William Pritchard built a steam-powered grist mill and cotton gin in a two-story frame building just north of the railroad depot at West End in 1883. Farmers from southern Orange County brought grain and cotton there, and Lloyd bought out Pritchard's share in 1886. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)
    2. Thomas F. Lloyd buys out his partner and adds a flour mill by the depot Lloyd bought William Pritchard's share of the steam grist mill and cotton gin the two had built north of the station in 1883, and had a flour mill built on the property. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)
    3. Herbert Lloyd takes over his brother's cotton gin and grist mill As Thomas F. Lloyd turned to building the Alberta Cotton Mill, his brother Herbert took charge of the steam gin and grist mill by the tracks, the frame buildings that had started the settlement in the early 1880s.
    4. The Lloyd grist mill burns and is rebuilt in brick The original wood-frame grist mill buildings burned in 1916 and were replaced by the brick mill that survives on B Street; lightning gutted its interior in 1921. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)
    5. Lightning sets fire to the new brick grist mill A few years after the brick mill replaced the burned frame buildings, a strike burned out its interior. It was soon repaired, and W. Albert Lloyd is said to have made it a grocery and his home; the 1925 Sanborn map lists it as his grocery warehouse.
    6. The Alberta Mill complex is listed on the National Register The mill, the railroad depot and the brick grist mill were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places, a year after the 1975 nomination made during the fight over demolishing the mill.
    7. Anna and Larry Hayes restore the old Lloyd grist mill as the Broad Street shop The Hayeses bought the brick mill, long a Johnson-Strowd Furniture warehouse, and restored it to federal preservation guidelines as a wine and cheese shop named for the street that once ran in front. They rebuilt the lost loading dock and set stained glass in the arched openings.

    Open these in the chronology →

    Research sources

    Background context 3

    Background from selected state and local sources

    Places to visit 4

    Maps, surveys, and the ground itself

    Read contemporary evidence 3

    Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

    Ask locally 5

    Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further

    Additional research sources

    Other sources to search and local organizations that can help.

    Nearby

    Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
    Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026