UNION GROVE — William Linney knows what it takes, in addition to cornmeal from Linney’s Mill, to make good cornbread, and he knows what ruins it, too. He likes little corn muffins that can be baked in a toaster oven in small batches. The secret ingredient is mayonnaise, a couple tablespoonsful, added along with the egg and buttermilk. Its four tablespoons of cornmeal to two of flour, Linney thinks, or maybe it’s the other way around.
He and his son, Billy Linney, go back and forth on the proportions for a few minutes, without ever settling anything. “We don’t cook much,” Billy says.
They know the muffins turn out better if you preheat the oven before putting them in, but overcooking them or adding too much baking soda makes them tough. The mayonnaise gives the cornbread a tender crumb and a rich flavor.
That’s about all they know about recipes, but the Linneys know a lot more about ingredients — especially cornmeal.
Linney’s Mill is a family business, and they’ve been producing corn meal with water-wheel powered grinding stones for about 65 years. William’s father, W.L. Linney, built a dam and installed the waterwheel on Rocky Creek, north of Statesville, in 1937.
William joined the enterprise in 1954, and his son Billy got involved when he was about 13 years old.
At one time, water-powered mills where a farmer could haul in his grain to be stone ground were fairly common along the creek, but Linney’s is the only one left.
The building never was very fancy, and it shows its age. An assortment of pieces of corrugated metal, brick-patterned asphalt siding and composition board cover the exterior walls.
Inside, the wood floors have been worn smooth by years of walking and sweeping. The stones that grind the grain are encased in a metal cabinet, and a hopper above feeds the corn into the grinder.
In the main storeroom, a counter with drawers, an old chair on casters and a wall covered with notes, pictures and newspaper clips functions as both office and sales center.
Simple white shelves along the back wall hold the mill’s products, self-rising and plain stone ground cornmeal, white and yellow grits, fish breader and ready-to-use pancake mix. A few other items, including honey and buckwheat flour from other regional operations, fill the rest of the space.
William Linney pulls out a yellowing notebook from behind the counter and turns the pages to show how many people come to the mill. The signatures of customers from Italy, England, Texas, Germany and Florida fill four or five such books. The Linneys think they’ve had customers from most of the states in the country.
Not that they advertise or anything — just word of mouth seems to get the word around. Some people who come in to make purchases for their neighbors and friends, as well as themselves, load huge orders into their pickup trucks and recreational vehicles.
The steady stream of people is part of the pleasure of the job for the Linneys. Wearing flannel shirts, work pants and caps, they do what has to be done around the place and still manage to have time for joking with whomever comes in — local folks, old-timers, customers from afar, nosy newspaper reporters.
They’ve been written up from time to time. A year or so ago, the Iredell Citizen printed a lot of pictures and a little story about the mill. Billy gets it out and, when asked if everything in the story is right, says, “Let me read it over.”
“That’ll take you too long, all that reading,” William says.
It doesn’t take much reading to learn what’s in the Linney products. It’s all on the label: cornmeal, leavening in the self-rising cornmeal, seasonings in the fish breader, powdered milk and eggs in the pancake mix. No mention of chemicals or preservatives with strange sounding names.
The products are packed in heavy paper sacks and hand tied with white cord. One customer says he likes to put the bags into heavy plastic bags and keep them in the freezer to keep the cornmeal fresh and free from bugs.
Bugs and other pests have to be controlled in any place where raw grains are processed, and inspectors are a regular part of the Linney’s Mill scene. Billy says he thinks they all learned their lines from Nancy Reagan, “Just say no.”
He says inspectors will always find some little thing for them to fix. The Linneys will fix it. And next time the inspectors will find something else. Sometimes they come up with dumb ideas.
William remembers a time when an inspector suggested sealing all the windows in the building, but changed his mind after William pointed out that the accumulated dust and warmth from the milling could blow up the building if it didn’t have ventilation.
As for pests that get in, cats and black snakes are the best protection against rodents, William says, much more effective than calling in exterminators.
The inspectors probably won’t argue that. In fact, for a while it looked as though a black snake might even keep away inspectors. William and Billy remember that they picked up a black snake on the property and placed it in a spot at the mill where the inspector would come upon it almost at eye level. He moved along right briskly in the opposite direction after he saw it, they say.
What a way to make a living!
Yep.
And as long as they have corn and customers and water in the creek, that’s what the Linneys plan to keep on doing.
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