As land to the south became harder to obtain, new arrivals moved northward into the East Twin River valley, where this area had long been known to local Indians and where the village of Black Earth, a summer planting ground, stood a short distance to the northeast along the same river. Settlement followed a pattern common in the county, with a community growing around mills; here, a sawmill and a gristmill were built on the riverbanks by Charles and William Tisch, whose name the community still bears. In the early settlement period the heavily wooded landscape meant that income was supplemented less by farming than by selling or trading forest products such as bark and shingles, but as the land was cleared, agriculture replaced lumbering as the community's economic mainstay. Former enterprises such as a brewery, blacksmith shop, cheese factory, and brickyard have disappeared, while some businesses, including the mill, the store, and the Forst Inn, have survived though not always in their original buildings. The church also has been part of the community since the early days of settlement, though not in its original building, and the community is somewhat unusual in Kewaunee County because, like Rosiere and Dyckesville, it spans the line between two counties.