Forbes opened the Santa Rosa Flour Mill in 1855, but the creek ran low in summer and flour prices fell, and he lost it in 1857. William H. Rogers made it pay from 1866 by raising the water head, and in 1869 it became the Los Gatos Manufacturing Company. It milled flour until 1887, then served as an ice and power plant, a brewery and bottling works, a gas works and a PG&E substation.
The four-story mill was torn down in 1916; the two-story annex added in 1880 still stands by the creek trail. It became California Historical Landmark No. 458 in 1950, was a history museum from 1982 to 2014, and its collections are now part of New Museum Los Gatos.