Throughout its history, Williamsville has maintained a village flavor. Dating to the early 1800s, the intersection of the original Great Iroquois Trail (later Buffalo-Batavia Road and now Main Street) and the Eleven Mile (now Ellicott) Creek shows a cluster of buildings that would soon include the current Mill structures. This intersection was identified by Joseph Ellicott as the ideal location for a settlement due to the terrain and water that allowed for such Mill activity.

Jonas Williams abandoned his first mill on the east side of the Ellicott Creek during 1811 to build the present mill on the west side of the creek. A stone dam was constructed at what is now the north end of Island Park and a stone lined raceway carried the water from the mill pond to the mill.

In 1814, Williams sold the mill with certain land and all the mill rights to Juba Storrs and Company. The following year, Juba Storrs and Company leased property on the east side of the creek to erect a carding mill and they also established a store at Main and Rock Streets.

Two centuries later, the Village community has expanded for miles beyond this intersection and in 2010 the Village of Williamsville chose to seek redevelopment proposals for the Water Mill property, which had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

After review, it was determined that the proposal by Iskalo Development Corp. was of significant interest to the Village Board of Trustees.  At the December 13, 2010, meeting, the Village Board passed a resolution authorizing the Village Attorney and Preservation Studios LLC to begin negotiations with Iskalo Development Corp. on a preferred developer agreement.

For more information, please see the following article from The Buffalo News.

Hopes Rise for Historic Buildings

Developer Looks to Take On Williamsville, Amherst Landmarks

Run-down historic buildings always are a problem. They're important to the community but expensive to fix, hard to adapt and a drain on taxpayers. Amherst and Williamsville have reluctantly sat on two of them for years.

Source: The Buffalo News
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