Brown's Mill Battlefield

Brown's Mill!

I noticed Brett Davidson riding some trail that I didn't recognize on Strava a while back. Turns out it was Brown's Mill Battlefield.

Intresting!

I was unfamiliar with the trail. It was in Newnan, and I hadn't ridden anything in Newnan since that guy's farm way back where you signed in on the porch. Back when Blankets Creek and Yellow River were the only trails in the Atlanta Metro Area. I couldn't remember the name of the farm, or how to get to it, or anything. It couldn't be the same trail... Whether it was or not, I was gripped by nostalgia and had to go check it out.

Brown's Mill Battlefield

Definitely not the same place.

Studying the map, it looked like there were 3 trails - an outer loop, an inner loop, and a beginner loop. The inner loops were kind of one-off-of-the-other, and there were a couple of connectors... Whatever, I'd figure it out.

Almost immediately I ran into riders coming from the other direction. Oh no. Was it directional? Turns out no, the first guy likes to ride it one way then ride it the other way. The second guy had just randomly picked a direction.

Allegedly, no one direction is better than the other, but after a while, it seemed like clockwise was the way most people rode.

I hit the outer loop, then the inner loop, then the beginner loop, then some maze through the system to hit the connector trails.

It's all this kind of outsloped, half backslope, bench cut, with rolling dips, and grade reversals:

And it's super fast, though I remember feeling like I was low on energy that day. I don't remember why now though.

There's a lake too. Kiwanis Lake.

The only kind-of frustrating thing is that it's called "Brown's Mill Battlefield" but no trail leads to or even to the vicinity of a mill or any mill-like anything. There's a creek at the back of the property, and if there was a mill, then this creek must have driven it, but even the hiking trails don't go down to the creek, or really get near it. Nor is there any dot on the map with a "Historic Brown's Mill Ruins" next to it. It's kind of a minor gripe, but it seems like it happens quite a bit. Such-and-such Mill Road or Park, or something, but no old mill to be seen. I mean, I understand, there may be nothing left but a barely noticeable notch in some rock somewhere. But if there are actual old mill ruins back there somewhere, it's such a tease to name the park after it, but then not even show it on the park map.