Thompson's Mill

Hello, this is Nelson Olmsted. Today, with apologies to Mr. Chaucer, we have a modern version of the Miller's Tale. But now, click Groobers Ready with a word from Pacific Power. Welcome once again to Stories of Pacific Power Land, a presentation of Pacific Power and Light, the company that has been serving the electric needs of the region's homes, farms, and industries

through more than half a century of progress and growth. Here's Pacific Powerland's favorite storyteller, Nelson Onstead. The smooth-flowing waters of the Kalakuyu River, the tributary of the Willamette in the Oregon country, looked just right to Richard Finley on that day back in 1858.

Finley, a miller, and a mill builder by trade surveyed the site with a practice tie, and said to himself, I'm gonna stop a man from digging a mill race just here. They take the water out of the river, y'all the channel it back and around the bend, plenty of water to turn the wheels, and the mill should be situated right here."

Well, Richard Finley and his two partners, P.V. Crawford and Billy Simmons, acquired the necessary land and water rights and set crews to work to build one of Oregon Territories' first flower mills. And the mill partners, along with other settlers of the Willamette Valley, planned a town which they named Boston. The flower mill, as it rose, was called Boston

Mills. The future seemed quite certain and prosperous to these pioneer folk. One of them said, yes sir. Boston might turn out to be the center of the whole valley one of these days. We're already got a flowering mill and the stage stop. You just watched this place grow when the railroad comes through in the seventies."