Old Mill District

Two sawmills opened on the Deschutes River in 1916 — Shevlin-Hixon on the west bank, Brooks-Scanlon on the east — and at their peak employed more than 2,000 workers each, turning out more than 500 million board feet of lumber a year. By 1950, the forests were depleted and the mills were finished. Developer Bill Smith purchased the land in 1993, preserved the three signature smokestacks and nine original buildings, and restored 14,000 lineal feet of riverbank that had been off-limits to the public for close to 80 years. The Old Mill District is the only project in the western half of the United States to receive a 2017 Excellence on the Waterfront Award from the Waterfront Center.