160                 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

the town, which was used about ten years, when the present two-story
frame house was built by F. M. Barnhart, who was trustee of Sugar
Ridge township from 1882 to i886.
    The first religious society organized at this place was that of the
Presbyterians, who erected a house of worship in the year 1874 or 1875,
on ground donated by the proprietor of the town, the charter membership
said to have been just the number of the apostles. This society, from lack
of number and interest, or other cause, did not flourish, and the house
was practically abandoned a few years later, which stood idle until the
United Brethren came into possession of it, when it was reconstructed.
A Methodist Episcopal society, organized about the year 1876, built a
church in the northwest part of the town in the year 1883. Dr. John
Williams donated the rock for the foundations of both buildings.
    The timber industry gave commercial life, activity and prosperity to
Saline City. Pickett & Jenks founded a stave factory here within the
same year that the railroad went into operation, who also did the first
general merchandising business. This firm was succeeded by E. Nutting
& Co., and they by Patton, Forsythe & Co., all of whom operated the
stave industry extensively, consuming millions of feet of timber. About
the year 1880 or 1881, while Patton, Forsythe & Co. were doing business,
as now remembered, James H. Grayson located here as superintendent
of the firm’s timber and manufacturing interests, under whose manage-
ment immense quantities of lumber were produced and shipped. At times
the large mill-yard was completely covered with logs and huge stacks
of lumber. After the retirement of this firm Mr. Grayson continued in
charge of the mill and industry for a number of years, succeeded by his
son, William M. Grayson.
    Very soon after the founding of the town Edward Barnett built
the two-story frame hotel, which for a number of years past was con-
ducted by Jason W. Brown, and now by Mrs. Brown. As a reminiscence,
it is told by survivors of the earliest history of the place that this hotel
first kept by Z. T. Barnett, was thronged beyond its capacity by regular
boarders, as many as thirty-five or forty, all of whom were served their
meals at the hotel tables, but that many of them had to provide their own
sleeping apartments, who bunked by permission at private residences,
the stores, the stave factory and other places.
    Here was the Knickerbocker coal shaft, the first mine opened and
operated in the county south of Brazil, worked from 1872 to 1876. The
pyramid of earth thrown tip from the excavation is yet visible to mark
the spot, a little distance east of the track of the E. & I. Railroad, just
before reaching the station from the south, so named for the reason
perhaps, that its promoters and proprietors hailed from New York, the
Knickerbocker State. The Risher mine, a later development in this coal
field, is located here, immediately alongside the railroad, on the south side
of the town.
    The flouring mill was built in 1905 by 0. H. Markle, proprietor, who
has continuously operated it.
    A lumber mill is said to have been operated on the border of the site
of this place at the time of the building of the Birch Creek Reservoir
by a contractor on construction of the same. In the latter part of the
fifties and the early sixties, perhaps, Abijah Donham had a sawmill at or
near the point of the junction of the side-cut with the feeder, where,
on the 25th of June, 1858, was drowned his son, William Donham, age 20