HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.


feet to the weather. The first manufacturing industry in Neenah
besides the Government mills was the first woolen mill in the
county, set up in 1847 by Daniel Priest, which he ran for sev-
eral years, then moving to Menasha, where his industry finally
became the Menasha woolen mills, which, very much enlarged,
are still in operation. The poll list for the town of Neenah in
1849 shows 191 names, and the tax levy for that year was $60
for general funds and $20 poor fund.
The city of Neenah, originated by its water power, was in-
tended at the beginning for a manufacturing place. Its dam was
constructed to raise a head of water for the double purpose of
power and navigation. The steamboat will never pass its locks
again; but its mills will run by water power perhaps forever.
The extent of its manufacturing was long ago limited by the use
of all its power, and steam was long ago added to supplement
the water. In the pioneer days the water rushing down its
broad river seemed inexhaustible, but the extensive enterprise of
its people soon made use of all the power in the river and then
sought other powers on which to build down the river and far
away on other streams.
When one looks back into the manufacturing activities of the
past there are three great industries that stand out beyond all
others--lumber, flour and paper making. The saw mill flourished
in its day and long ago passed on to the fleeting timber line to
the north. The flour mill has only one representative where one
day it led all its neighbors. The paper industry, originating
here, has spread to other parts and developed into one of the
great manufacturing enterprises of the state.
The first mill built in Neenah was a sawmill, the first in the
county and the first on the Fox and Wolf river, that afterward
gave up its wealth of timber to the relentless mills of Oshkosh,
where wealth undreamed was cut out of pine timber and still is
cut in millions and billions of feet. This little mill with its big
wide-blade saw jogged up and down through the log and cut off
slabs and plank too slow for anyone but the pioneer. The old
wood water wheel that jogged the mill along was made by the
wheelwright and the lumber was all hauled by hand, though the
logs may have been snaked into the mill with a chain on a power
shaft. When Col. Harvey Jones came to own the village the old
mill, which had done little else but rot down, was so much out
of repair he set men to work at once.to rebuild and reconstruct
it into a new mill. Mr. Charles Lindsley was a partner with him

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