Dillard Mill is the second mill built on this site. The first was a mill built by Francis Wisdom in 1850 and known as Wisdom's Mill. The mill used the same dam as that used by Dillard Mill later and was a sought after site for photographers as a backdrop.

Joseph Dillard Cottrell bought Wisdom's Mill in 1881; the community of Dillard having grown up around the mill and the village taking its name from Dillard Cottrell.

The mill burned in 1895; even so, much of the town had already shifted a mile north to relocate near the Sligo & Eastern Railroad line.

Emil Mischke had purchased the millsite and ruins in 1900 and began to rebuild a 30'X 40' frame structure, using some of the salvaged timbers of the old mill, on the rocky outcrop on the edge of dam. the photo shoes the tailrace coming from the turbine pit.

Four schoolhouses were located near here consecutively. The first frame one-room school washed away in a flood after 1898; the second, built the same year as the current mill, burned; a 1938 fire destroyed the third (stone) mill; and the 4th mill, another stone mill built by WPA labor still survives, abandoned near the entrance to the present mill along Sh 49.

Midchke installed two stands of the new steel roller mills and also replaced the wheel with a steel turbine. Mischke sold the mill in 1930 to Lester Klemme and moved with his wife to California.

Klemme also operated an Old Mill Inn near the mill. A person could swim, fish and eat meals with the Klemme family for $7.00/day.

The Inn was operated into the early 1960's, but the mill closed in 1956 from its role as a feed mill, grinding livestock feeds. Klemme continued to live on at the mill location through 1974.

In 1974, Klemme sold Mischke's Mill/Dillard Mill to a non-profit St. Louis based group called L-A-D Foundation. Starting in December 1975, the foundation leased the property and mill to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources as the Dillard Mill Historic Site.

A final view of the mill and dam from the trail leading from the parking lot to the mill.