Location:  905 Orchard Drive (corner Orchard Dr. and Mill St.), Bountiful, Utah

Markers at this location:

• Daniel Davis
• George Quinn McNeil
• Heber C. Kimball
• Heber C. Kimball Grist Mill
• Original Gristmill Stones

Daniel Davis was born on December 18, 1808, in Amesbury, Essex County, Massachusetts, the third child of Wells Davis and Mary Kelly Davis. As a young man Davis traveled to Nauvoo, Illinois, where he was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was adopted into the Heber C. Kimball family.

On April 20, 1846, Davis was forced from Nauvoo and joined the Saints’ western migration. During the migration, Heber C. Kimball assigned Davis to assist in building Winter Quarters at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Davis reached the Salt Lake Valley September 24, 1848.

Pursuant to Kimball’s desire to erect a flour gristmill on this site, which was then known as North Mill Cañon, Daniel Davis began to clear this ground on July 18, 1852. On April 20, 1853, the mill’s northeastern cornerstone was laid by Isaac Hunter, the southeastern stone by Daniel Davis. The next day Heber C. Kimball dedicated the site.

Upon the mill’s completion Davis assumed its management, living in an adobe house southwest of this site. The three-story mill was then the largest in Utah Territory. In 1869, the Kimball grist mill was purchased for $8,000 by Bishop John Stoker and others of the Bountiful Cooperative Mercantile from the trustees of the Heber C. Kimball estate. Later, the mill became an entertainment center.

Daniel Davis died at age 84, on February 25, 1892. Now, a century later, we recognize his many contributions to the mill and the community.

See other historic markers in the series on this page for SUP Markers.