The Box Elder Flouring Mill

The Box Elder Flouring Mill

BY FREDERICK M. HUCHEL

UNDER THE DIRECTION OF BRIGHAM YOUNG the first settlers, William Davis, James Brooks, and Thomas Pierce, arrived at the site of present-day Brigham City in March 1851. Other families came later that year. By fall the beginning of a village was underway, and the settlers had built a fort on Box Elder Creek at what is now 700 North between 300 and 400 West. Eight or nine families spent the winter of 1851-52 in the settlement called "Box Elder," surrounded by about 500 Shoshone Indians. In the spring the settlers broke up the fort and moved out onto their own farms. Following Indian troubles about a year later, the Box Elder residents were ordered by Brigham Young to move again into a fort. It was built on higher ground south of the first fort near present 300 North between 100 and 200 West. By October 1853 records listed 204 inhabitants of Box Elder. At the LDS church conference that month Lorenzo Snow was called to take fifty families to Box Elder. When they arrived the next year the fort was enlarged. Soon another group of immigrants further increased the size of the settlement. In December 1854 Wilford Woodruff reported that there were sixty families in Box Elder. In 1855 Jesse W. Fox laid out a townsite under the direction of Lorenzo Snow, and the building of the community—named Brigham City in honor of the Great Colonizer—had begun in earnest.

In April 1855 a report published in England noted that "Elder Lorenzo Snow is building a mill, and making a farm at Box Elder. About 25 families are going with him." The mill was erected at the top of a steep bank overlooking the Box Elder Creek bottoms. The town plat began at the mill—the mill taking up the northeast corner of the city as it was laid out. Plans called for the entire town to be enclosed by a rock wall twelve feet high built by the settlers with each earning his building lot by constructing a portion of the wall. The mill not only formed the northeast corner of the town, it served as a strategic military outpost as well by providing a lookout and a fortified position for protection from the still hostile Shoshones. As an early settler explained:

Brigham City was once entirely surrounded with a wall of rock. This was the settler's protection against "Pocotello" and his scalping Indians. At the mere mention of 'Tocotello" children would scud for home. At times the Indians were fierce, when sentries were kept on guard night and day, rain or shine. Many a weary hour they must have spent on guard.

The Box Elder flouring mill, the first industry necessary for setting up a Mormon agricultural community, was built at the insistence of Brigham Young who provided the money for building it and acquiring the machinery. That he had a stake in the mill is evidenced by mention of a visit he made to Box Elder "to inspect a mill owned by myself and Elder L. Snow." Lorenzo Snow served as superintendent of the mill, with Samuel Smith also having a directing interest. Later stockholders were William Gardner, Ike Jensen, and "Miller" Jensen.

The construction of the mill was directed by Frederick Kesler, Brigham Young's master mill builder. Born January 20, 1816, to Frederick and Mary Sarah Lindsey Kesler, in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, Kesler apprenticed himself to a millwright at age fifteen. By the time he was nineteen he was contracting on his own to build mills. In 1835 he built the first flour mill in Iowa as well as some sawmills. Baptized into the Mormon church in 1840, Kesler and his family arrived in Utah in October 1851, having tarried to build mills on the way west.

Kesler wanted to build a grist mill and go into private business; in fact, he wanted to build his mill in Box Elder, but Brigham Young told him his business was to be millwright for the church rather than a private businessman. Obedient to counsel, Kesler began immediately to build mills at Young's direction. After constructing several mills in and around Salt Lake City, Kesler was sent on a "mission" to the East to learn about the latest technology for all sorts of mills. The trip, taken with Horace S. Eldredge, lasted from March to July 1854. The following year Young directed his millwright, now armed with the latest ideas in mill building, to erect a mill for Lorenzo Snow in Box Elder, the place where Frederick had wanted to settle and build himself a mill.

The Kesler daybooks show that construction on the mill was underway by June 1855 and give specifications for timber: beams, posts, girts, plates, columns, and caps. The floor joists were being put in and the rafters set in place. By September 15 Kesler had worked twenty-seven days on the Box Elder mill. The December daybook entries show the materials needed for such things as the "floom." Other materials mentioned included spindles, wheels, flanges, rollers, a hoisting screw, and a regulating screw. In May 1856, when travel was again possible, Kesler ordered a shaft for the bottom of the wheat elevator and a load of two-inch planks and "spurr & water wheels." By June the heavy construction was apparently almost finished for his orders were for finishing materials. Numerous orders were placed during the summer months for parts for the mill mechanism, including wheels, cogs, and the mill stones. On August 23 Kesler noted some personal items his workers wanted him to order:

Coffee! Coffee!! Coffee!!! 5 plugs of tobacco for S. Ensign 3 plugs of tobacco for Geo. Taggart

Finally, in late October Kesler placed his last recorded orders for the mill for plaster, scales, and paint.

The completion of the mill was timely. Wheat crops for the years 1854-56 had been poor due to crickets, grasshoppers, and drought. The year 1857 was the first that a grist mill could profitably be used by the community.

The Box Elder grist or flouring mill was typical of mills built all over Utah by master millwright Kesler. Other mills designed by him of which photographs exist show a great similarity in structure and design with a distinctive clerestory running the length of the roof and unique treatment of the end walls. The Willard Richards mill in Farmington (1849-51), presently the Heidelberg Restaurant, was built by Kesler as was the Samuel Hoyt grist mill (1862) on the Weber River in Hoytsville. The old mill in Liberty Park in Salt Lake City, known as the Isaac Chase-Brigham Young mill (1852), was also built by Kesler.

The Box Elder mill, as noted above, sits on a steep bank above Box Elder Creek and is designed so that from the top of the bank (city side) entrance is on the main or ground level. The back (north side) of the mill is at the bottom of the bank and entrance is to the basement level.

The basement and foundation of the mill are of rock while the main building, containing two stories above the main level, is of local adobe, probably from the first adobe yard north of town which was used before the adobe yard west along the creek was opened. The walls are three feet thick on the first story and two feet thick on the second. The beams and floors are of rough-cut lumber from local mountain pine, now long gone.

Characteristic of Kesler mills, the ground level has a split-level floor, allowing for the machinery and gravity feed used at that time. The flour was ground by two stone burrs. As the top wheel was rotated by the water-powered mill machinery, wheat was fed through an opening in the upper wheel into the grinding space, forced into the burr grooves, and ground into flour. The buffers were located on the upper floors. Water from the creek was diverted through a race ditch to a flume that ran into the building and out again at the northeast corner and back into the creek. The water wheel was inside the mill.

Since the mill had been built to serve not only as a mill but also as a fort the only windows were on the second and third levels. On the ground floor a door opened on the south side, and rifle ports faced south and west, overlooking the creek. The ports were about eighteen inches deep, the thickness of the walls, and wedge-shaped with the small slit in the outer wall surface. A rifle could be moved in a considerable arc with minimum exposure. With a fortified mill and a rock wall running west and south from it, the town was quite secure from the northeast. Even so, there were some anxious moments.

One story is told of "Miller" Jensen. He went into the basement of the mill which at that time was a network of machinery and old timbers. At the bottom of the stairs he met a big . . . Indian who had . . . managed to get in. . . . The . . . Indian had a gun, but instead of using it he grappled with "Miller" Jensen . . . until . . . Jensen was so tired that he thought he would have to give up. Suddenly the Indian let him go and said, "Me good Indian." "Miller" Jensen thought he had overpowered him and certainly gave him a lecture.

To operate the new mill Lorenzo Snow called Mads Christian Jensen, then living to Ogden, to come to Box Elder. Born April 4, 1822, in Elling, Denmark, Mads probably learned the miller's trade from his father-in-law who not only was a miller but also owned a distillery. Jensen's wife, Maren Hansen, came from the village of Borglum some twenty-five miles from Ellin near the shores of the Skagarack. In August 1851 the couple were baptized into the Mormon church and the following year left Denmark for "Zion" in the company of John E. Forsgren of Box Elder, one of the missionaries who had labored with them in Bastholm. They arrived in Salt Lake Valley on September 30, 1852, and soon located in Kaysville where Mads helped build a flour mill for a Brother Winel. During the next few years they lived in Salt Lake City and Weber County where Mads pursued his craft and served in the militia. In answer to Snow's call Jensen moved to Box Elder in February 1857. He had been there about a year when Brigham Young ordered the northern settlements evacuated in preparation for the Utah War. Jensen's two wives moved south with the rest of the residents of Brigham City, but the miller stayed behind to grind all the wheat that remained into flour for the use of those who were moving, for they had no idea if or when they would return. In August 1858, however, the Jensen family was able to return to Brigham City where they established permanent residence.

Mads Christian Jensen, known as "Miller" Jensen, became a capital stockholder in the flouring mill and the woolen mill and was highly respected in the community. A man of means, he secured homes for each of his three wives. His first home, where his first wife lived, was on 300 East (then called High Street), just around the corner from the mill. Jensen served as miller for many years, probably throughout the active life of the Box Elder flouring mill.

The move south during the Utah war provided a unique chapter in the history of the mill—a story detailed by Frederick Kesler. On March 25, 1858, there was a mass meeting about the planned move south, noted by Kesler. Two months later he took up the story of the Box Elder mill's move south:

May 26

This morning I had orders (from Brigham Young) to go to Boxelder & take out the machinery & forward the same to Provo. I left the city with 4 of my foremen for Boxelder. Slept in straw stack by corn pen.

May 27

Rained all night cold day arrived at Boxelder at 2 ocl P M Found the guard all well 16 in all.

May 28

Stopt the mill at 7 ocl A M and commenced taking it to pieces the news soon got to the Indians who were campt nearby about 40 in no. who soon came in to see what was up.

May 29

Got the machinery of the mill al ready for loading up by 12 ocl I visited the city the houses were left in a very dirty state fences down & everything bears the mark of distruction.

May 30

Sunday morning very cool teams arived at 1 ocl P M Got all loaded up By }4 past 7 ocl A M

May 31

Over took our ox teams at Willow Creek Broke one axeltree of the waggon that had on the mill Stones Lightened up the other waggons and Started them on. I then pushed a head Staid at Holmes Creek Slept in a Straw pile.

June 4

Fine warm morning went to Provo visited Pst B. Young He showed me the site where he intended building a flouring mill. I returned to camp in the evening.

From this it appears that had the war not been settled the Box Elder mill machinery might have been installed in a mill in Provo. By the middle of July 1858, however, a peaceful settlement had been made with the federal government and people returned to their homes. The millwright's job became now to reverse what he had done. Again, Kesler noted the task:

July 17

Visited B. Young Got instructions to Replace Boxelder Flouring

Mill.

July 18

My ox team Has Traveled During our move South & Back over 900 miles . . . the past move Has lost me at least one thousand Dollars.

July 25

Loaded up the Boxelder miU & Started Back for the City—arrived at Home 2 ocl at night

July 30 Gathered items for the Box Elder mill

July 31 Started for Boxelder—stayed at Ogden—roasted beef on a stick in the street for supper, slept on top of Bishop's haystack.

During August 1-6 Kesler reinstalled the mill machinery and got it in running condition. On August 12 he returned to Box Elder and the following day started the mill, commenting that it "performed well making beautiful flour." It continued to serve the community well for about a quarter-century.

The mill remained under the control of Lorenzo Snow and Samuel Smith, even through the period of the Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association, or the Co-op, while the planing mill, the tannery, and the woolen mill were acquired by the cooperative association. This was not unusual. It seems to have been the custom of the presiding authority in a settlement to keep an independent source of income so that he could work as overseer of the Co-op "for nothing" and would not be open to criticism for profiting from the Co-op's enterprises.

Apparently by the 1880s, when business began to grow and the demand for flour increased, the water power was not adequate for expansion at that site. The Brigham City Flouring Mills Co., under Snow and Smith, built a new mill at the mouth of the canyon, abandoning the old burr mill. The company was renamed the Brigham City Roller Mills.

About the same time, the federal government stepped up its campaign against the Mormon church and its economic influence. The cooperative movement in Brigham City collapsed under the pressure, and the mills were all put out of business and up for sale. At this point, John H. Bott entered the picture.

Born February 2, 1858, to Phllip Wise and Elizabeth Skeggs Bott, John Henry and his family joined the LDS church in 1867 and left England for America four years later. The young Bott trained as a machinist in New York on the way to Utah and after arriving in Salt Lake City in the spring of 1873 moved to Brigham City. He married in 1876 and shortly thereafter was called to work on the Salt Lake Temple where he learned the stonecutter's trade. In 1877, following counsel from Lorenzo Snow, Bott began a stone-cutting and monument business in Brigham City, working first from a lot near the cemetery. As business increased he moved to a location on south Main Street and built a small shop. By 1890, when the Bott Company again needed a larger plant, the Co-op mills were available.

Bott looked the old mills over and found that the flouring mill, abandoned for several years, had sufficient water power for his purposes, which the tannery did not, and was available for a lower price than either the planing mill or the woolen mill. He acquired the flouring mill and the entire city block on which it stood for $300. The last payment on the mill was made by supplying the family of Judge Samuel Smith with a cemetery monument, and Bott received title to the property in 1897.

When John Bott first took possession of the mill the building was in disrepair. He strengthened the walls, put up roof drains to eliminate further deterioration due to water damage, added a large red brick chimney on the west end, and performed other repairs. The second and third floors he remodeled for use as living quarters and as rooms for his business. He leveled the main floor and replaced the machinery with equipment for the stone business.

Over the years the city wall had been torn down piecemeal, with the stone used for walls, basements, and foundations all over town. With the Indian threat long gone windows were needed more than gun ports, and so the narrow slits in the main floor walls of the mill were enlarged and glazed. A frame structure was added to the northwest corner of the mill for more living space. Bott rebuilt the power train, replacing the old flume with a penstock and moving the wheel outside the mill walls. In the process of leveling off the bank north of the mill workers uncovered the skeletons of two Indians and reburied them elsewhere. Shortly after the turn of the century pneumatic tools became available, and John H. Bott incorporated the new technology.

Bott had trained his sons John, Lorenzo, Philip, and William in the business, which became known as John H. Bott and Sons Company. When Bott died in 1914 his sons Lorenzo, Philip, and William bought the property and the business, incorporating in 1917. Over the years the business grew and in 1933 became a strictly wholesale enterprise with William managing the plant and Lorenzo, president and general manager, doing the traveling and sales work. A show yard was opened in 1916 just south of Merrell Lumber on Main Street near First North. Equipment was added as the business grew, and the plant became one of the largest and most modern operations of its kind in the West. The old waterwheel was replaced by a more efficient turbine and the penstock by an underground pipe. The front door was enlarged to its present size and a crane installed. A frame addition was built on the east side of the mill, thirty-two feet wide by seventy-five feet long, later enlarged to two hundred feet long.

Until 1916, when a hydrant was installed in front of the mill, drinking water was taken from the race ditch. The piped water was especially welcome to the wives of William and Lorenzo who still lived in the mill. Soon after, a city water system made running water available throughout the mill. About 1920 the families built homes just west of the mill, finally separating the business operation from the families' living quarters.

Updating continued with sandblasting replacing pneumatic chisels in the monument making, and about 1930 an in-house granite polisher was installed. By 1939 the company was receiving stone in railroad car sized blocks from nearly a dozen locations throughout the country. From seven to fifteen men were required to maintain operations with occasional night shifts needed to keep up with demand.

In 1943 Lorenzo Bott bought out his brother William's interest and ran the business until 1949 when he sold it to his son L. Max and a son-in-law, William Durrell Nielsen. Later, Max acquired sole ownership, and it once again became a retail business.

The old Box Elder flouring mill was built very early in Brigham City's history as the town's first industrial structure. Very few buildings dating from the 1850s survive in town. The wholesale destruction associated with the faddish demolition of historic structures in the name of "progress" has left little from Brigham City's pioneer era. It is pleasantly surprising, therefore, that the town boasts a Kesler mill, intact and functioning, one of the oldest operating mills in the state. Presently under the direction of a fourth-generation family member, John H. Bott and Sons, operating in Brigham City since 1877 and in the mill building since 1890, is one of the oldest businesses in the town and with the closure of Elias Morris and Sons is the oldest stone monument business in the state.

A final note of historical interest: descendants of Mads Christian "Miller" Jensen are still operating a flour mill in Brigham City. In 1909 Jensen's sons organized the Jensen Brothers Milling and Elevator Company and built a mill on west Forest Street, now known as the Big J Milling and Elevator Company, a modern roller mill operated by the fourth and fifth generations of "Miller" Jensen's descendants.

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