In 1846, former Hudson's Bay Company employee Thomas McKay erected on this site a gristmill (flour), and in 1849 an attached sawmill, which sold in 1852 to Michael Nowlen, then in 1866 to Robert Hall Scott, from which the City of Scotts Mills acquired its name in 1893. At one time claimed to be the most productive gristmill west of Minneapolis, during the year beginning 1 July 1849 the gristmill produced 4,500 barrels of flour and the sawmill produced 624,000 board feet of lumber; later years saw the Scott's Thistle Brand flour shipped as far away as China. The gristmill operated until the mid-1920s and was dismantled during the mid-1930s.