This site was a major industrial center in the Grand Traverse region. The Greilick family produced the interior and exterior woodwork that finished most of the area's Victorian homes and all the woodwork for the early Northern Michigan Asylum buildings. Years later, the Parsons Company developed numerical control of machine tools here, an accomplishment recognized worldwide as the beginning of the second industrial age. Godfrey Greilick, an Austrian contractor and builder, arrived in Traverse City in 1856 with seven sons and soon established a commercial sawmill on the bay a mile north of this site, later operated by the sons as Greilick Brothers. In 1867, with the assistance of Hannah, Lay and Company, his oldest son, Joseph E. Greilick, established a millwork factory in the Boardmans' original water-powered mill to supply finished woodwork for area homes, specializing in window sash, doors, blinds, interior trim, frames, store fronts, and flooring. In 1879 the firm built a large modern plant on this site that eventually expanded to seven buildings on five acres. In 1884 the business won the contract to furnish all the material in its line for the Northern Michigan Asylum. After Joseph E. Greilick's death in 1892, the business was incorporated as the J.E. Greilick Company with Clarence, Ernest, and Mrs. J.E. Greilick as stockholders. Within a decade the firm employed more than one hundred people and had added store fixtures, kitchen cupboards, and bookcases. In 1915 it became the Greilick Manufacturing Company, specializing in upholstered chairs and library tables before closing during the Great Depression.