Lowell’s first sawmill was built in 1856 by Seth Cogswell on the creek south of the Grand River, but from the 1840s to 1870 most logs passed through Lowell on log drives that continued down the Flat and Grand Rivers to sawmills in Grand Rapids and Grand Haven. Michigan’s lumbering boom reached Lowell around 1870, and in 1871 King, Quick & King purchased a mill on the east bank of the Flat River north of Main Street. In early spring, logs were floated down the river into the log run and lifted by elevator into the mill to be sawn into lumber, then carried by a second-story tramway to the island in the middle of the river for stacking and drying. The mill processed 50,000-60,000 board feet of lumber per day, and a shingle mill was added on the island in 1879. The lumbering era lasted only until the 1890s, when Michigan’s vast forests had been harvested and the lumber firms moved west to new forests.