My husband and I spent a quiet Christmas at home this year, watching the news stories of the warmest Christmas on record in the Northeast, torrential rains and deadly tornadoes in the Southeast and interstate-closing snowstorms on the mountain passes out here in the West. While we love celebrating holidays with family and friends, sometimes it’s nice to not have to worry about delayed flights, closed roads or putting chains on tires. We normally skip the local newscasts on Christmas but tuned in for an update on the weather last night when we happened upon a story which brought news of a sad loss for our Rogue Valley. Five years ago I wrote about a real treasure and piece of living, working history when I blogged about the Butte Creek Mill in nearby Eagle Point. The mill was built in 1872 and was the only water-powered grist mill operating west of the Mississippi. Bob Russell bought the mill in 2005 and proudly hung collections of antique signs and farming, milling and logging equipment from pioneer days on its walls. Whenever we had guests from outside the region visiting us, we’d be sure to take them up to the mill and let them gape at the enormous, rough-hewn timbers and stroll over the wide plank floors. A video loop ran on a screen near the milling room, with Russell narrating the history of the mill and explaining the workings of its massive French-quarried millstones. More often than not when we stopped in, though, the man himself would pop up and gladly walk you down to millrace level, pointing out this feature and that, sharing anecdotes from the past and taking you behind the scenes up in the milling room to show you the great stones and check on whatever grain was being ground at the moment. As often as I heard those stories (and, I’m sure, as often as he told them), Russell’s enthusiasm for the beautiful old structure never waned, and our friends always remarked on how much they enjoyed the history lesson. We always left with an assortment of goods from the Country Store, located at one end of the building and featuring original wooden display cases, an enormous and functioning wood stove and timeworn wooden counter. So the news that the massive structure had burned down in the early hours of Christmas morning brought shock and a great sense of loss. The mill was not just a tourist attraction and monument to the past, it served as the historic heart of a small town and a popular community gathering spot. Those weighty millstones can likely be salvaged, but the lumber and the antiques are gone. Even more, the unique sense of time and place those walls contained have vanished into the cold December air. — Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor