 Business at Portage Mill increased rapidly and the site became a busy little village as the mill and its fifty workers reportedly cut 30,000 shingles, 10,000-12,000 pieces of lath a day, totally 4.5 million feet of timber in the 1870 cutting season.By 1870, the pier at the Portage Mill was a wooden bridge pier that was 30 to wide, stood about out of the water, and extended several hundred feet into Lake Michigan.A narrow gauge railroad carries the timber from the mill out to the waiting vessels alongside the pier.