After our encounter with the previous series of stone walls littered along the banks of the Eagle River we were surprised to discover that we weren’t finished with the old mill ruins just yet. Just a short distance away we found yet another set of rock walls. These sat further up the steep hillside and looked less like mill foundations as they did some general purpose building foundation. But they were definitely part of the mill complex.

It was this grand beauty that we discovered first – a free standing wall some 15 feet hight built from rock and mortar. This wall was a completely different animal then the mill foundations we first discovered. Instead of the flat slate-like rocks used there, these rocks were larger and joined with mortar. I would guess that this wall was a more recent addition to the mill complex.

It is true that the old Phoenix Mill underwent a major renovation at some point. Perhaps this wall was part of that renovation, as a component of a much larger addition to the mill itself. While the slate-like rocks used in the mill foundation were similar to the walls we had found at Copper Falls, these rocks looked more like those we would expect at Cliff or Central.

This new addition’s purpose became a little more clear as we found a few more items scattered near its base…

Sitting just outside of the new building’s remaining walls was this set of four iron bolts protruding up out of the ground. These bolts signaled the presence of some type of machinery, perhaps even a steam engine. These bolts coupled with the loco boiler sitting down the hill made us that that we were looking at the remains of some type of an engine / boiler house. The boiler would provide the steam for the engine that might have been mounted here on the bolts. It was an idea anyway..

The engine/boiler house’s foundation consisted of two parallel walls set into the hillside. The walls created a cut-out into the hill which would have been the basement to a building that once sat above our heads. That wall we first encountered was the basement’s west foundation, the inside of which you can see in the photo above.

Standing across the way sat the remains of the building’s east foundation, which was in much poorer shape then its western counterpart. In fact a Cedar tree had managed to grow straight out the side of the wall, no doubt causing the wall some stability issues in the process.

Set halfway down the east wall was what looked like a possible door opening. There a good chunk of the wall was missing, with its outer ends having a peculiar “sawed off” look to them. From here both sets of walls – east and west – ended into the hill along a dirt wall on the building’s back side. The whole building wasn’t very large, only about 15×30 or so. A few more sawed off bolts could be found scattered across the floor, but they were much stubbier then those we had found outside. The building defiantly housed some type of machinery, we just weren’t sure of what type.

Crawling out of this foundation we discovered even more walls awaiting us…

To Be Continued…