Historic Contexts Study and Phase II Inventory (Downtown Elk River) 2022

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The nucleus of Orono was its six-foot crib and boulder dam. Drawing power from the Elk River, the lumber mill used timber floated down the Mississippi in seasonal log drives. The sawmill was fitted with one sash saw, capable of sawing about three thousand feet of lumber per day. Godfrey also opened a general store, as did P.C. Hawes. In addition to the mills and dam, Orono had a scattering of houses, a cemetery, a schoolhouse built in 1857 that also served as the Sherburne County Courthouse, and the Trinity Episcopal Church. By 1857, population of the settlement reached about 134. Godfrey appears to have been in partnership in the lumber mill with Charles Mansur, an Orono resident who left Minnesota about 1862. ' Godfrey also sold an interest to Ed Dickey in 1857. By 1880, the property was sold to E.P. Mills and W. H. Houlton, whose lumber business would produce 1,200,000 board feet of lumber by1880. Ard Godfrey (1813-?) was born at Orono, Maine and grew up in a family of millwrights. In 1847 he arrived in St. Anthony to work as a millwright for Franklin Steele who was planning the first dam at the falls. (The house he built in St. Anthony in 1849 still stands.) Throughout his career, Godfrey sought opportunities to develop millsites. He left St. Anthony to briefly return to Maine, and upon his return he purchased the Orono millsite, made a townsite plan in 1855, and an addition in 1857. However, he does not appear to have permanently resided in Orono, and well before he sold his last mill property there about 1863 he devoted himself to his interests in Minneapolis, including his saw mill and grist mill on Minnehaha Creek. ss Pushing westward, he later built the first sawmill in Montana. 56 Godfrey's partner, John G. Jameson, was also a native of Maine. He arrived in Minnesota in 1851. Unlike Godfrey, after the sale of the mill property he entered farming, which he pursued until his death in 1869.57 . By1899, there were two general stores anda wagon shop still in operation near the dam, in addition to the Elk River Milling Company's flour mill and the W. H. Houlton Lumber Company's sawmill. While Godfrey provided the dam and early mills, it was W.H. Houlton's flour and lumber businesses that would persist at this location for several generations. 58 Elk River Riverside Hotel, Main Street about 1900. Photo: MHS. Elk River Historic Contexts Study Draft 412002 L � 20