Paint Creek Millrace

Paint Creek begins in a Brandon Township wetland and flows southeast to Rochester where it empties into the Clinton River. Today a thriving trout stream, the creek was important for waterpower during the nineteenth century. Needham Hemingway dammed the creek, dug a one-half-mile-long millrace and built a gristmill in 1835. Edward Demerall owned a sawmill just west of here from 1840 until 1872, when the Detroit and Bay City Railroad laid track that disrupted production. By 1876, William Goodison had bought Hemingway’s mill, enlarged it and installed modern machinery. The mill operated until 1941. The abandoned railroad bed became the Paint Creek Trail in 1981.