Charles Mears built White Lake’s first sawmill in 1838, and four mills operated on White River tributaries during the next decade. Axmen, swampers, skidders, loaders, and haulers cut and moved pine, hemlock, and cedar logs to the White River, where they were floated to the White River Log and Booming Company pens, sorted, and rafted to mills that produced lumber, shingles, lath, and pickets. In 1883, there were twenty-four mills in Whitehall and the vicinity, and lumber was rafted down the lake and carried on barges to ships in Lake Michigan. Between 1838 and 1907, White Lake mills shipped over 3 billion board feet of lumber. On this site, Whitehall’s first steam-powered lumber mill was erected in 1856, purchased in 1871 by Hiram Staples and Lyman Covell of the Staples and Covell Lumber Company, and operated until 1874. A new mill built in 1875 was the largest and most modern on White Lake, with four saws and an 80-foot smokestack. By 1884, sixty men earning between $1.37 and $3.50 per day could turn 1,400 logs into 60,000 board feet of lumber during an 11-hour shift, and in 1894 the mill produced 10 million board feet of lumber. Schooners, barges, scows, and trains carried the lumber to Chicago and points east, and the closing of the Staples and Covell Mill in 1907 marked the end of the lumbering era on White Lake and the logging era on the White River.