National Park Service Cultural Landscapes Inventory 2018 – Ivy Mill

The Ivy Mill is a historic site complex located in Fulton County, in Roswell, Georgia north of Atlanta at the confluence of Big Creek (historically known as Vickery Creek) and the Chattahoochee River.1 The cultural landscape consists of approximately 2.90 acres of a historic mill complex and includes 19th century woolen mill ruins, raceway, earthen and stone dam, and associated artifact scatter. The area south of Riverside Road contains the architectural ruins. The site is part of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area (CHAT)’s Vickery Creek Unit. This cultural landscape focuses on the mill ruins located at the southeast quadrant of the intersection of State Route (SR) 9/Roswell Road, Riverside Road, and Vickery Creek. The proposed site boundary then extends north of Riverside Road to include the mill raceway and earthen and stone dam on Vickery Creek. The south end of the site is approximately 40 meters north of the northern bank of the Chattahoochee River. The northern boundary terminates at the ruins of the earthen and stone dam on Vickery Creek. Allenbrook is located on the west bank of Vickery Creek, south of the Roswell factory. The Allenbrook site consists of a two-story, brick Plantation Plain house, and was constructed between 1851 and 1856 by James Roswell King as his family home. The boundary of the site is approximately 2.0 acres. The house may have served as a residence for the Ivy Mill’s manager, John Brown, during the Civil War, when members of the King family relocated for safety. The Roswell Manufacturing Company rebuilt the mills following the war, and the King family’s ownership of Allenbrook and the Ivy Mill ceased at this time. Other bosses and managers of the Ivy/Laurel Mills were residents of the property until the late 19th century. The Georgia Power Company acquired the property for a short time in 1923, and by 1932, Barnett Allen Bell was the listed owner of Allenbrook. The Bells resided in Allenbrook until the 1970s. After Mr. Bell’s death, his wife sold the property to NPS in 1978. Between 1984 and1991, it served as the headquarters for the Roswell Historic Society. It was then used as a residence for NPS employees until 1997. The house is considered the most intact cultural resource associated with the CHAT’s Vickery Creek Unit. The extant features of the Allenbrook site include the house and surrounding lawn and vegetation. Modern features such as interpretive signage, a kiosk, wooden steps, a brick path, natural surface trails, and a paved parking lot with a metal gate were added in the late twentieth century to support its change in use to a site within the CHAT. The vegetation on the site consists of specimen trees and shrubs. Allenbrook is identified as its own landscape but shares a common history with the Ivy Mill site. It has been included in this document as a contributing feature.