Before the Shops and Restaurants, Bend’s Old Mill District Was a Lumber Mill

If you walk through Bend’s Old Mill District today, it’s easy to forget what was here before the restaurants, shops, apartments, concerts and riverfront trails.

There are people walking dogs along the Deschutes. Kayakers moving through the water. Families heading toward a concert. People grabbing dinner and watching the sunset.

It feels like one of Bend’s most modern neighborhoods.

But for most of the 20th century, this was something completely different.

It was a lumber mill.

And not just any lumber mill.

At its peak, the area along the Deschutes River was home to two of the largest pine sawmills in the world. They employed thousands of people, operated around the clock and helped turn Bend from a small Central Oregon settlement into a booming timber town.

The story of the Old Mill District is really the story of Bend itself.

It started with the railroad

Before the mills arrived, Bend was a much smaller place.

The arrival of the railroad in 1911 changed that.

For the first time, Central Oregon had a much easier way to move people, supplies and, perhaps most importantly, lumber.

Timber companies had been interested in Central Oregon for years. The railroad made it possible to turn that interest into an enormous industry.

In 1916, two competing lumber companies opened mills along the Deschutes River.

The Shevlin-Hixon Lumber Company opened its mill on the west side of the river in March.

A month later, Brooks-Scanlon began operating its Mill A complex on the east side.

They were competitors, but they shared one enormous resource: Central Oregon’s ponderosa pine forests.

Then they got bigger.

In 1922, Brooks-Scanlon built a second and much larger mill upstream.

It became known as Mill B.

Much of the area that makes up today's Old Mill District was eventually occupied by these industrial operations.

The river was full of logs

It's hard to picture the Deschutes River in the Old Mill District as an industrial workplace.

Today, the river is one of the main reasons people come here.

A century ago, it was part of the production line.

Logs harvested from the surrounding forests were brought toward the mills and floated down the river.

A log boom divided the river between the two competing companies.

Workers known as “pond monkeys” moved across the logs and worked to prevent jams.

The mills were operating at an enormous scale.

Brooks-Scanlon alone averaged around 300,000 board feet of lumber a day during its early years. At that rate, the company was producing roughly enough lumber each day to frame about 30 homes.

At their peak, Brooks-Scanlon and Shevlin-Hixon were two of the largest pine sawmills in the world.

Each employed more than 2,000 workers.

The mills ran around the clock.

Bend was no longer a small frontier community.

It was a timber town.

The mills changed Bend

The growth happened quickly.

Bend's population was just 536 people in 1910.

By 1920, it had grown to 5,414.

The mills brought workers, families, businesses and money into the community.

Neighborhoods expanded.

Stores opened.

Houses were built.

More infrastructure was needed.

The city grew around the industry.

For decades, timber was the center of Bend's economy.

That history is easy to miss when you're sitting outside a restaurant near the river today, but the connection is still visible if you know where to look.

Some of the old mill buildings survived.

The enormous smokestacks are still standing.

The building that now houses REI incorporates the former Brooks-Scanlon powerhouse and fuel building.

Other pieces of the old mill remain scattered throughout the district. In total, 11 historic buildings are preserved within the Old Mill District.

The buildings aren't just decoration.

They're pieces of the reason Bend exists in the form it does today.

Then the trees started running out

The timber industry couldn't continue forever at the same scale.

The mills had been cutting enormous amounts of timber for decades.

By 1950, timber supplies were becoming a serious problem.

Shevlin-Hixon sold its interests to Brooks-Scanlon, which closed the Shevlin-Hixon mill later that year.

Brooks-Scanlon continued operating, but the industry was changing.

Over time, the company relied increasingly on timber from federal lands as supplies from its private holdings declined.

By the late 20th century, the economics of the timber industry had changed dramatically.

The Brooks-Scanlon mill eventually shut down in 1994.

For the first time in generations, the riverfront that had been dominated by the timber industry was quiet.

What happened next is almost as interesting

An old industrial site could have remained an industrial wasteland.

Instead, Bend eventually went in a completely different direction.

William “Bill” Smith and his development company acquired roughly 270 acres of the former mill property and began working on a massive redevelopment project.

The goal wasn't simply to build another shopping center.

The project opened up land and riverfront that had effectively been closed to the public for decades.

By the mid-1990s, approximately 14,000 feet of riverfront had become accessible to the public.

River trails were created.

Old buildings were preserved.

The industrial landscape slowly became something else.

And that “something else” eventually became the Old Mill District we know today.

Look around next time you're there

One of my favorite things about the Old Mill District is that you don't have to know much about its history to enjoy it.

You can walk the trail.

Grab a coffee.

Go shopping.

Watch a concert.

Float the river.

But once you know what used to be here, the place looks different.

The three smokestacks aren't just part of the scenery.

They're remnants of a time when the riverfront was filled with noise, smoke, machinery and workers.

The powerhouse isn't just an old brick building.

It once helped power a massive lumber operation.

The river wasn't simply something to look at.

It was part of the mill.

And the open riverfront that now feels like one of Bend's greatest amenities was once largely off limits to the public.

Bend has changed before

That's probably the most interesting part of the story.

We talk a lot about how quickly Bend is changing today.

New neighborhoods.

New businesses.

More people.

More traffic.

More development.

And it's true. Bend is changing quickly.

But it isn't the first time.

The Bend of 1916 would be almost unrecognizable to someone walking through the Old Mill District today.

A place that once revolved around cutting trees and producing lumber eventually became a place built around restaurants, recreation, entertainment and public access to the river.

The physical landscape changed.

The economy changed.

The people changed.

And the city changed with it.

That's what makes the Old Mill District more than a collection of shops along the river.

It's a snapshot of Bend's ability to reinvent itself.

A century ago, people came here because of the timber.

Today, people come here for an entirely different reason.

And if you stand along the river long enough, you can still see traces of both versions of Bend at the same time.

The old smokestacks are still there.

The river is still moving.

The city has simply found something new to build around them.