Carpenter-Rudd Mill

Joseph Jackson built one of the first sawmills in Orion Township on this site in 1825. During the nineteenth century the waters of Paint Creek powered machines that cut logs into board lumber and ground wheat into flour. In 1835, Powell Carpenter bought the mill and built a complex of three houses, a blacksmith shop, a general store, a cooper shop, a grist mill, and a school. In 1865 it was purchased by Robert G. Rudd and became known as Rudd’s Mill. Farmers from a wide geographic area brought their wheat to the mill for grinding. Milling operations ceased and the buildings were demolished in 1926. The creek dam remained until 1946 when it was washed out in a storm, flooding the creek all the way to Rochester. The concrete railroad bridge dates from 1924.