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the year and had five different machines, including a circular saw, lath and shingle machines, and a planer.IO? It was destroyed by fire in 1873.108 The Houlton brothers and Nickerson built another sawmill in the same location but it soon became the sole property of Horatio . Houlton as William HoultQn purchased part interest in the flour and .saw mills at Upper Town and Nickerson built a planing mill at Upper Town.I09 Unlike the Upper Town sawmill, both of H. Houlton's sawmills were steam. powered,110 His second sawmill contained similar machinery as the Upper Town mill (two circular saws, an edger, a trimmer, and a lath and shingle machine) but had a larger daily capacity at 25,000 feet of lumber, 30,000 shingles, and 20,000 laths. III This mill employed an average of ten men but only operated fulltime three months out of the year while being idle the rest of the year,112 The mill was likely shut down sometime in the mid 1880s when H. Houlton moved to Duluth. A June 2, 1892 article in the Sherburne County Star News noted that Houlton was in Elk River visiting for the first time in seven or eight years.ll3 The mill stood unused from the mid 1880s until a fire destroyed the remains of the mill in 1894.114 TRANSPORTATION Oxcart Trail and Military Road Orono and Elk River were located on what was known as the Metropolitan Oxcart Trail, This trail ran from St. Paul to Sauk Rapids, where it met the Woods Trail and the Middle Trail. The trails originated in the Pembina region of Canada, just north of the Minnesota- North Dakota-Manitoba border. The Metis, those of French or British and Native American ancestry, lived in the Pembina region and used the trails to haul furs to the Twin Cities where they could sell or trade the furs for supplies. The trails were mostly used from the mid-1840s to the mid-1850s. The Metropolitan Trail generally followed the north shore of the Mississippi River and crossed the Elk River in southeast quarter of section thirty-three of Elk River. A military road was established along generally the same path as the Metropolitan and Woods Trails in the mid-1850s. It started in at Point Douglas, where the St. Croix River meets the Mississippi River, and ran north to Fort Ripley, north of Little Falls. The military road crossed the Elk River in section thirty-six of Big Lake Township and then rejoined the 33