The prime mill sites in Eau Claire had already been taken, so Charles Warner built this mill four miles below Eau Claire on the Chippewa River, near a natural slough which worked reasonably well for holding logs.

[3] In 1864 Warner sold the mill to the firm of Porter, Brown & Meredith, who operated it for two years until it burned in 1866.

Porter had grown up on a farm in Michigan, taught school there, worked for the Chapman and Thorp Lumber Company in Eau Claire, and managed the Eau Claire Free Press.

Porter and Moon's enterprise later became the Northwestern Lumber Company, after adding other partners.

In the early years, most of the output - lumber, shingles and lath - was floated down the Chippewa to Northwestern's lumberyard in Hannibal, Missouri.

In 1883 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul Railroad built a line through Porter's Mills, and began shipping products west by rail, to places like Minnesota and South Dakota.