Children take a hayride at the Kenan’s Mill Festival on Saturday. The mill formerly operated commercially, but is currently maintained by the Selma-Dallas County Historic Preservation Society. — Josh Bergeron

VALLEY GRANDE — Hundreds of locals flocked to Kenan’s Mill on Saturday to hear some bluegrass, take a quiet stroll through the woods and learn how to make cornmeal.

The Selma-Dallas County Historic Preservation Society hosted the Kenan’s Mill Festival to raise money for the mill. The 12-acre mill sits one mile north of Selma on Dallas County Road 236 in a quiet patch of woods.

The festival offered a chance for locals to celebrate rural life in Alabama’s Black Belt and share memories of the mill when it operated commercially, Preservation society member and Kenan’s Mill chair Sylvia Smith said.

“When we first opened, we had people come back and say they used to come out and husk corn,” Smith said. “It’s interesting to hear real life memories of what went on out here.”

The festival has come a long way since it started 11 years ago, she said.

“In our first year, we didn’t have a bandstand, so the band stood on pallets and sang without microphones,” she said. “Volunteers built the band stand and we also received a wood donation.”

Volunteers were also present at the festival, in the form of more than 60 Boy Scouts from four local troops.

“We are out here to have fun camping, but part of being out here is service hours,” Boy Scout District Executive Leith Wilson said.

The mill’s history officially dates back to 1863 when the Kenan family built it, but Smith said Kenan’s Mill may not have been the first located on the property.

“There are letters that said they found old parts of a mill on the property,” she said. “The Kenan family operated the mill until 1968. In 1997, the family gave 12 acres of land, including the mill, to the historic preservation society.”

The society has spent thousands of dollars making repairs to the mill and surrounding property since taking over, such as repairing bridges around the property.

For the past 11 years, the festival has been hosted on the first Saturday of November, but Smith said the mill is beginning to offer educational tours as well.

“We had an elementary school come out the other day,” she said. “They came out and husked corn. After they got done, some of them stuck the corncob in their pockets and took it home.”