Payson's Pioneer Industries

For a small farm town, early Payson made a surprising amount of things. Settlers founded the place in 1850 on Peteetneet Creek, and within a decade its water was turning mills of every kind. A sawmill and flour mill were running by 1853. In 1860 the town built a nail factory — one of the first anywhere west of the Mississippi — and in 1861 a planing mill, among the first in the whole territory. The pioneer millstone this monument sets on the ground marks that industrious beginning, on the creek that powered it all.

What the plaque says

This Pioneer Millstone designates the centennial of Payson City, founded Oct. 20, 1850, by Mormon settlers. Near this monument on Peteetneet Creek was erected the first public building, a log cabin used as a school, church and fort. A sawmill and flour mill were build by 1853. A nail factory, one of the first west of the Mississippi River in 1860; a planing mill, one of the first in Utah Territory in 1861, and Payson's first public school was opened in the Spring of 1866.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Payson Lakes — 9.4 mi
  Three alpine lakes in the pines, twelve miles up Payson Canyon
• Thistle Landslide — 13 mi
  The ruins of a town destroyed by a massive landslide in 1983
• Nebo Loop Summit — 13 mi
  The byway's 9,300-foot high point, with Utah Valley spread out below
• Mount Nebo — 15 mi
  At 11,928 feet, the highest and southernmost peak in the Wasatch Range

More markers nearby

• Payson City Hall — steps away
• Keele Monument — steps away
• Our Pioneers — 0.5 mi
• The Walker War — 0.5 mi