Annals of the Beaver River

This ruined concrete foundation is on a small island in the Stillwater Reservoir. Scattered about the ruin it is still possible to find the occasional piece of broken crockery, bricks or broken drain tile. During times of low water in the fall, traces of a barn foundation emerge nearby.  Stillwater locals and visitors rightly assume that the ruined foundation is all that remains of a large hotel that once occupied that location. The full story is far more complex. This strategic hilltop looking out on where Twitchell Creek flowed into the Beaver River is where the first Stillwater inhabitants of European descent lived. It was more or less continuously occupied for 100 years from 1825 until 1925 when the Stillwater Reservoir was flooded and the spot became an island. It’s not known exactly when the hermit  David Smith  built a small log shanty there, but based on mostly reliable guides’ tales, it was probably about 1825. Smith made his meager living by trapping and possibl...