Fire Burns Mill...See Pictures

Hundreds of farmers have to look elsewhere for their feed after fire destroys a historic mill. It happened at Bristow Mill in Perry County. Built in the late 1800s, the company is the only of it's kind in the county selling custom feed to farmers. It's the largest fire Anderson Township says they've resonponded to in years. Rather than grinding feed like a typical day on the clock, Cody Esraey's cleaning up what's left of his family's business and more than 100 years of history. "It just went so quick. It just happened so quick," says Matt Esraey.

Bristow Mill is owned by Cody's father Matt. It caught fire around 10 am. "It started on the second floor at a bearing in one of the grinders upstairs went bad got hot started dust on fire," says Fire Chief John Taylor. Matt saved the company almost a decade ago. "They were going to close it down. I hated to see that happen so I bought it." He's says it's been growing ever since, but Matt doesn't keep track of customers. "At one point we had 1300." A full service farm store built in 1890, it's the only feed mill left in Perry County offering something more personal than chain stores. "We custom grind feed for our customers." It's those people matt is thinking of now. "A lot of the weekend farmers we have here I feel terrible about it." But many of those farmers are also these firefighters helping clean up. "It's devasating to see all this damage it's been here for years," says customer Gary Esraey.

A firewall built in 1936 when another blaze destroyed the orginially building helped save what bagged feed Cody is removing now, but once that's gone there's nothing left to sell and nowhere left to grind it. Esraey did have insurance, but says it's not enough to cover the damage. He says it would cost almost 2 million dollars to rebuild because of the structures history.

These pictures were supplied to Fox 7 News courtesy of Alessandra Aders and the Perry County News.