Art Detail
- Title: Reflections on Scotts Mill
- Artist: Lucy Slivinski
- Location: Knoch Knolls Nature Center
- Medium: Sculpture
- Creation Date: 2014
- Description: Sculpture that spans the entry to Knoch Knolls Nature Center, created using recycled materials.
- History Behind Art: A reminder or times past. This re-creation of the frame of an old, water-powered sawmill commemorates the first sawmill in DuPage Township. Scott's Mill once stood on the West Branch of the DuPage River just north of where it meets the East Branch. Steven Scott was the first white settler to make a claim on this land. In 1830 he built a log cabin south of the West Branch. Other settlers soon followed, and the confluence land became known as the Scott Settlement. The land was covered with forests and the settlers began cutting trees to build houses and barns. Each tree had to be laboriously cut by hand. In 1839, turning logs into planks became easier at the new sawmill build by Scott and another settler. It became known as Scott's Mill. According to an 1878 Will County historical account, Scott's Mill was "washed away in a season of high water." In the 1950's, a future son-in-law of Judge Win Knoch, namesake of the park, was driving a tractor on a farmland near the site of the old sawmill when his tractor wheels tossed up a piece of the mill: a hand made hardwood gear.