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44 To many, the above official notice came as the first intimation that the historical old landmark which had stood as a monument of the industry and struggles of the pioneer people of Utah since the early years of their advent into the valley, was to suffer the vandalism of civilization, which, through the voice of the City Council, had condemned it as a blot upon the beauty of our public park. The building was one of the first flouring mills erected in the valley and the second one erected within the present confines of the city. It had stood for nearly five decades as a witness of the vicissitudes, and monument of the pluck and industry of the Utah pioneers~-and the news that this memento of past struggles and achievements was to be ruthlessly obliterated, brought forth from those whose lives had been blended with the struggles of those days, of which the mill stood as a striking and characteristic monument--vigorous protests against the unnecessary sacrifice of the old landmark. From the early settlers who had plodded back and forth from its doors with the grain hardly won from the ungracious soil; from the aged architect who had designed and constructed the edifice; from those who had been born and reared on the historic site; and from children of the pioneers who desired to save that which stood as an object lesson of the early toil of their parents--protests were at once uttered, privately and publicly, through the medium of the press and through active personal effort, with a view of staying the progress of destruction .... Bishop Frederick Kesler, whose voice had but recently stilled in death, was the builder of the mill, and one of the last public efforts made by the aged pioneer in behalf of the city he had helped to shape, was the following plea, voiced through the Deseret News at the time of the inception of the movement for the mill's preservation: I built the old flouring mill that stands in Liberty Park for Brigham Young in 1852 .... I would say, beautify its surroundings and make it attractive, and thousands of people will take pleasure in viewing one of the old landmarks of the early days of Utah. I am sure that the majority of sober thinking people will voice my sentiment which is: Spare the old mill. From the Chase family--now residing in Bountifu1--who lived on the site before the present mill was erected, and whose rooftree it became, and afterwards remained for many years--came a representative in the person of a daughter who had been born under the old mill rafters and who personally petitioned members of the council in the cause of the historic old homestead.