Knight's Ferry was founded by Captain William Knight, a member of Fremont's expedition of 1844. The town became a center of great mining activity and a distributing point for the mother lode country. In 1854, Locke and Dent erected the first sawmill and flour mill in this territory. General U.S. Grant visited his brother-in-law George Dent in 1854. Knight's Ferry served as the county seat of Stanislaus County from 1862 until 1872.