PICKENS — Traditional musicians from the area will gather on Jan. 16 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to celebrate a new year with music old and new from the mountain culture that surrounds our beloved Hagood Mill.

The Blue Ridge Mountains begin right here in South Carolina at Hagood Mill. When you leave Pickens on U.S. Highway 178 west and cross the beginnings of the Twelve Mile River, you approach Hagood Mill, and you’re in the very first mountain community of the historic Blue Ridge.

The event at Hagood Mill will feature Three Creeks Over, a homegrown bluegrass/gospel band of three friends who have been playing music together in Pickens since 2012.

Heartstrings will lead off the event around 11:30 a.m. with its traditional roots, gospel and bluegrass music. Listeners will be delighted by the unique sounds created by instruments such as the autoharp, mountain dulcimer, fiddle, stand-up bass, guitar and mandolin.

There will be lots of other things to see on Saturday as Hagood Mill hosts a variety of folk life and traditional arts demonstrations. There will be blacksmithing, bowl-digging, flint knapping, chair-caning, moonshining, broom-making, basket-making, pottery, quilting, spinning, knitting, weaving, woodcarving, metal-smithing, bee keeping,  leather-working and more. You can ask questions of the artists and make a purchase of their Traditional Arts to take home.

The centerpiece of the Hagood Mill historic site is the water-powered 1845 gristmill. It is one of the finest examples of 19th-century technology in the Upcountry and operates just as it has for the last century-and-a-half. The mill will be running throughout the day. In the old mill, fresh stone-ground corn meal, grits, and wheat flour will be available.  In addition, rye flour, Basmati rice flour, oat flour, oatmeal, popping corn meal, and grits, organic yellow corn meal and grits, and buckwheat flour are produced and may be available.  Hagood Mill cookbooks and a variety of other mill related items are also available.

Saturday’s event at Hagood Mill will feature Three Creeks Over, a homegrown bluegrass/gospel band.

There is a $5 parking fee for the day, but admission is free to the Hagood Mill Site ,as well as the Hagood Creek Petroglyph Site. All proceeds from parking will go to help the Hagood Mill.

Food from the GateHouse Restaurant in Pickens will also be available.

The Hagood Mill historic site is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. all year long. The mill operates, rain or shine, for a special festival the third Saturday of every month.

The Hagood Mill is located just three miles north of Pickens off U.S. Highway 178 or 5.5 miles south of Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway 11 just off Highway 178 at 138 Hagood Mill Road.

“Music in the Mountains 2016” is sponsored by a private benefactor. For additional information, contact the Hagood Mill at (864) 898-2936 or visit visitpickenscounty.com/calendar.