Settlers began arriving on Hilliard Flats in 1860 to ranch and grow crops, and despite long, cold winters and short growing seasons, Hilliard City developed homes, a hotel, cafe, store, and other commercial buildings while serving as a center of the logging industry with many charcoal kilns nearby. When trains changed from coal to steam and charcoal was no longer needed, Hilliard Station closed in 1900, the town lost its population, and the area became sheep and cattle country with historic working ranches still on the landscape. In Piedmont, logging operations were established before the railroad arrived to furnish ties for the roadbed, and in 1868 track crews began laying rails and digging test wells that found pure, deep-flowing water. Piedmont quickly grew as a water and wood refueling station, with settlers building a store, hotel, saloons, school, church, and permanent homes. After the Aspen Tunnel bypassed Piedmont, the population fell to 35, and the Guild Store and post office closed in 1940; the buildings were hauled away, but foundations, charcoal kilns, and the cemetery remained. In the headwater drainages of the Bear River, timber cutting from 1870 to 1900 removed large amounts of timber, and a large sawmill established by Jesse Atkinson used logs floated down the Bear River during spring runoff. Thirty-two charcoal kilns were built in the Hilliard and Piedmont areas, and their charcoal was shipped to smelters in Utah and Colorado for use by the railroad. Railroad ties were another early product of timber cutting and flumes, but the charcoal industry declined as smelters turned to coke and prices fell, native lumber was replaced by higher-quality lumber from the Northwest, and the flumes were dismantled for scrap lumber, leaving former tie hack camps as historic remnants.