History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its cities, towns, resources, people

              396 HISTOEY 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 w^hich 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