Mill Stones

These two grinding stones once turned in the first gristmill in this part of Sanpete. Brigham Young sent the pioneer Elam Cheney to build it, and Cheney did nearly all of it himself: he quarried and shaped the stones, hauled them and his family to Fairview, then forged the mill's ironwork and carpentered its timbers besides. Set up in 1868 on the Sanpitch River, the mill's great overshot wheel turned the stones to grind the valley's wheat into flour. The mill is gone; the stones remain here, a monument to the man who made a settlement's bread possible.

What the plaque says

“These are the Mill Stones from the first grist mill in this area”. It was built in 1868 by Elam Cheney Sr., a pioneer of 1847. At the request of President Brigham Young he quarried & shaped the stones & moved them & his family to Fairview, where he also blacksmithed the iron & carpentered the wood. The stones were turned by an overshot water wheel with water from the Sanpitch River.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fairview — steps away
  The north gate of the Heritage Highway, home to a near-complete Ice Age mammoth
• Mount Pleasant — 5.6 mi
  A National Register Main Street and Utah's oldest boarding school
• Spring City — 10 mi
  An entire pioneer town preserved on the National Register
• Skyline Drive — 14 mi
  A hundred miles of dirt along the 10,000-foot crest of the Wasatch Plateau

More markers nearby

• Settlement of Fairview — steps away
• An Inspiring Heritage — steps away
• Mt. Pleasant Fort — 5.6 mi
• Memorial Hall Recreation Center — 5.6 mi