Childer's Mill

Shanklin's Mill, also known as Childer's (Childers's) Mill, was a pioneer settlement on the Lampasas River four miles southeast of what is now Belton in Bell County. The settlement was among the earliest Anglo communities in the area and was started by Capt. Goldsby Childers, who built a log cabin there in 1846. Robert Childers and Tom Waldon built a mill at the site, and the community had a store and a school a year later. When one of a group of Mormons who settled in the area fixed and ran the mill for a time, it became known to some as Mormon's Mill. The mill community lay on the military road to Fort Gates, and a stage stand on the road from San Antonio to Nacogdoches was opened in the community in the early 1850s. At various times three schools were open in the town. When Belton became the county seat in 1850, the mill community's store owner moved there, and the mill town declined. In 1856 Childers sold his mill to Gordon W. Shanklin, and the community was known as Shanklin's Mill until it disappeared later in the 1800s.