The 1825 Millstones That Fed the Oregon Country Headed for Seattle
A Stevens County man sent the Hudson's Bay Company's oldest Pacific Coast millstones to the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, where they joined the state historical exhibit.
J. S. Meyer shipped last week to Seattle the oldest Hudson Bay Company millstones, with some of the original irons, which will form a portion of the state historical exhibit at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. The stones were quarried near Meyers Falls from native granite, and were first used in a windmill in 1825 or 1826 at the Hudson Bay Company's Fort Colville, and moved to the falls on the Colville River, now Meyers Falls, in 1825, where they were used until 1843, when the later or Gowdy mill of the company was erected. The stones are supposed to be the oldest on the Pacific coast, and at one time furnished flour for the greater portion of the then Oregon country and were first exhibited at the first Spokane exhibition, where they were somewhat mutilated by souvenir hunters.
“The stones are supposed to be the oldest on the Pacific coast, and at one time furnished flour for the greater portion of the then Oregon country.”
The stones were already relics when they left Meyers Falls in 1909; today the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific grounds are the University of Washington campus. The story is a reminder that Newport's corner of the state was part of a fur-trade food system that predated Washington statehood.
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