Sawmilling began here on August 24, 1839, when the Marine Lumber Company cut its first pine log. In the autumn of 1838, two lumbermen from Marine, Illinois, David Hone and Lewis Judd, arrived in the St. Croix River valley, attracted by its abundant resources of white pine. They selected this site, then known as Fall River, to build a sawmill and named it after their hometown. Lumber was floated down the St. Croix River and then shipped by rail west to the prairies. It was used to build towns and cities, and it enabled settlers who had been living in sod houses to erect wood-frame homes. For more than five decades, St. Croix pine lumber supported the burgeoning economy of Minnesota.