In its more recent history, Fork Branch Nature Preserve became a crossroads for milling and transportation. The first Europeans settled in this area in the late 17th century, when John Albertson and John Mumford acquired the 877-acre Maidstone tract. The Miller family then acquired the land and subdivided it between 1742 and 1762. Peter Miller built a grist mill just south of the preserve, and it was later replaced by a saw mill. An 1859 map of Kent County shows Charles I. DuPont as the mill owner and shows a road leading from the DuPont train station across the preserve to the mill rather than following the modern route of Denny's Road to its intersection with Kenton Road, about half a mile northwest of the mill. By 1868, however, Denny's Road was at its current location. The mill seems to have been gone by the end of the 19th century, since it is not shown on later maps. Most of the preserve's uplands were never used to grow crops but appear to have been managed as wood lots and a source of timber.