In 1850, this land was the site of a three-story gristmill that processed wheat, buckwheat, and cornmeal for the people of the village of New Germany. John Swauger built the mill piece by piece from hardwood on his own property, carving and polishing many of the gears and pulleys by hand. The huge structure had three stories and a basement and operated with waterpower from the nearby lake. A sluice, or millrace, built on a series of trestles carried water from the east side of the lake under the dirt road through a wooden culvert and then several hundred yards into the mill, where it was funneled onto an overshot wheel about 40 feet in diameter. Buckets around the wheel's outer perimeter filled with water, and their weight turned the wheel, powering the main drive gear in the basement and a series of other gears and belts that drove the mill's grinding operations. Excess water ran off into nearby Poplar Lick Run. In the early 1900’s, the mill was sold to Irish immigrants Phillip and Michael McAndrews, who built an imposing ten room home next to it. The mill remained here until the early 1930’s, when President Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps bulldozed the entire operation to make way for the parking facility and began the work that would become the recreation area known as New Germany State Park. Today, all of the buildings have vanished, and only the old millstones at the entrance to Parking Lot #5 remain.