
Flat Creek is a typical blackwater artery of the Coastal Plain, ephemeral at times due to drought and other environmental factors, but a beautiful sight when at normal levels. It’s a multi-pronged tributary of the Withlacoochee River, important to the early settlement of the area. According to an historic marker: Flat Creek Mills was a trading post and election precinct many years before the present Berrien County was created in 1856. Officers of the new county were sworn in here, and there being no court house, the first Inferior Court was held here in the unfinished barn of W.D. Griffin, owner of the mills at that time. The next year the barn was finished and in use so court was held across the Creek in the home of Mr. Ham who moved his beds and other furniture out for the purpose.