Heber C. Kimball Gristmill, Historical gristmill in Bountiful, Utah

The Heber C. Kimball Gristmill was a three-story adobe building on a rock foundation, built in 1853 in North Mill Cañon. Only the foundation and a few feet of the adobe walls remain today. A monument 30 yards east holds a 1:3 scale replica mill, nine feet six inches high, built in 1937 by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

Heber C. Kimball received land rights at North Mill Cañon in 1851; Daniel Davis cleared the ground on July 18, 1852, and cornerstones were laid on April 20, 1853, with the mill dedicated the next day. After Kimball's death in 1868, his estate sold the mill to Bountiful Cooperative Mercantile for $8,000. It operated until 1892, when burr mills became obsolete.

The mill's name comes from Heber C. Kimball, First Counselor to Brigham Young, who dedicated the building the day after its cornerstones were laid in April 1853. Daniel Davis, an early Mormon convert adopted into the Kimball family, managed the site and lived in an adobe house southeast of the mill. Local trapper George Quinn McNeil assisted Davis and trained black bears from the Wasatch Range to work at the mills.

The monument stands about 30 yards east of the original mill site, just south of Bountiful High School, and is reached via Mill Street from Orchard Drive. It is open to the public at all times. The replica measures 9 feet 6 inches high, 8 feet 6 inches deep and 6 feet wide, with the two original stones displayed 10 yards to its north.

Trained bears from the Wasatch Mountains once assisted with work at the mill under the care of George Quinn McNeil. This unusual arrangement shows how creative and resourceful early settlers had to be in operating their facilities.