For thousands of years, the Rouge River and later the Mill Pond now known as Quarton Lake benefited many thousands of people, serving early inhabitants as a resource for survival and, in more recent times, enhancing life in Birmingham through natural beauty and recreation. Quarton Lake took its present form after the Rouge River was first dammed by the entrepreneurs Josephus and John Young to power a sawmill. The sawmill was later sold to Roswell T. Merrill, who abandoned it in favor of a larger plan that relocated the dam and created a new headrace to supply waterpower for his gristmill near Maple Road and east of the Waterfall Hill development. Merrill is credited with naming Birmingham. From the 1840s to the 1910s, the mill changed hands several times, burned, was rebuilt, and was later razed about 1918 after Fred Quarton and his brother sold 200 acres to Detroit investors in the Quarton Lake Estates Company. The land was subdivided into 700 lots for new homes, requiring a larger lake, and a new dam was built in November 1918. Since then, a vibrant community has grown around the lake and beyond it, and today the lake and walking trails stand at the center of a broader network of parks and outdoor resources shaped by Birmingham's citizens and leadership to help make the city a walkable community.