Palmer Divide Research

Wyatt's sawmill (1859)

Also: Fisher's mill · 'the first saw mill in Colorado'

SawmillsHistoric or vanishedDouglas County

What we know

Judge Wyatt brought a sawmill early in 1859 and set it up at Russellville in February 1859; Mort Fisher bought it and 'cut much of the lumber that built early Denver' (1889 account, which calls it the first sawmill in Colorado, ahead of D. C. Oakes's). In February 1860 Fisher & Rogers planned to move it 'to the pineries near Bradford' to shorten the haul from 35 miles to 18 (News, Feb. 22, 1860).

Where it was

Placed just west of the Russellville marker: the mill stood 'on Cherry creek at a point afterwards known as Russellville' (Field and Farm, reprinted 1889); its exact site is unknown.

Placed from a written description, such as a land section, a distance from a landmark or an old survey note.

See it on the map

Sources

Sources are named in the text above. Numbers such as S-0080 refer to our source list. Most newspaper quotations were read in the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. Long quotations from recent books are shortened here.

Know more about Wyatt's sawmill (1859)?

Corrections, family stories, photographs, deeds, letters and maps are all welcome. Messages and files come to Michael Christensen privately; nothing appears on the site until it has been checked, and you'll be credited the way you ask.