In the early days of the settlement of northern Illinois, one of the most pressing needs was for a grist mill. When the Greens built their first grist mill, in 1830, it was one of the few places where people could have their grain ground. People came from as much as fifty miles away, and because of the distance and the number of people waiting for their turn, they sometimes had to wait in line for several days. The hardships of those early days made good telling in later years, as shown by this excerpt from the Earlville Gazette of February 8, 1868

Recollections of the Early Settlement of the Town of Earl, by Charles H. Sutphen

The first two winters we were here it was very difficult to get grinding, Green’s mill, at Dayton, being the only one within fifty or one hundred miles, and this mill occasionally froze up in the winter; the mill would be so crowded sometimes in the winter, that parties going to mill would have to wait sometimes two and three days for their grist.  I have laid by the hopper some two nights in succession, in the coldest of weather, waiting for my turn.  If you left your post, some one might slip a grist in ahead of yours; but this was soon remedied by the erection of mills on the Big Vermillion, and Dr. Woodworth’s, at Marseilles.