George W. Mills, who is proprietor of the Olive Grove Stock Farm, situated on the Cosumne river in eastern Sacramento county, is one of the most prominent sheep men in the state. Twenty thousand is the usual number of sheep that pasture on his large ranches, of which he has several in this section of the state, and the figures which tell of his annual shipments of sheep on the foot, of his wool sales, of the gret trcts of pasture land and amounts of forage and feed, indicate the great extent of his industrial enterprise. It goes without saying that great executive ability and skill in management born of long experience are the qualities which have been most essential to Mr. Mills' success, and a casual interview with him shows him to be a man of power in his line of endeavor.

Mr. Mills located on his present ranch in 1899, it being the formerly well known George Taverner ranch. The Olive Grove ranch contains seventeen hundred acres, devoted to both farming and stock-raising. On another big ranch of nine thousand acres, in Eldorado county, he raises horses, cattle and sheep, and his ranch of seven thousand acres in Placer county is devoted exclusively to the sheep industry. For some ten years before he located on his present ranch he carried on a large sheep business in Lyon county, Nevada.

Mr. Mills is by birth a product of the middle west, having been born in Muscatine, Iowa, November 11, 1855, although the fact of his being brought to the coast at an early age makes him almost typically Californian in all respects. He is the only son of two aged California pioneers, Robert T. and Elizabeth (Butler) Mills, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of England, and, at the prespective ages of eight-three and seventy-eight, this venerable couple reside at 2429 L street in Sacramento, their only daughter Mary caring for them as they pass the evening of life. In 1864 the father, putting his family into a conveyance drawn by a span of mules, set out from Muscatine and in six months had crossed the plains and reached Sacramento county, his first location being west of and near White Rock, where was the family home for a number of years. The father held the office of Justice of the peace at White Rock many years, and during his active career was a prominent man in the various activities.

Coming to Sacramento county when a boy of nine, Mr. Mills was reared to man's estate in that county, his education being supplied by the public schools of Sacramento and a private school in Napa city. It was in the spring of 1877 that he began on his own account his connection with the sheep industry, and the subsequent twenty-five and more years have each witnessed his attainment of increasing success and prosperity.

Mr. Mills married, June 16, 1900, Miss Elizabeth Gilfillan, who was born in Sierra county, this state, and for several years previous to her marriage taught school at Salinas in Monterey county. They are the parents of three children, Geroge W. Jr., Richard A. and Milburn F. A Republican in politics, Mr. Mills has always performed his proper part as a citizen, but the engrossing nature of his business affairs has precluded any further connection with public life.

Source: History of the New California - Its Resources and People, Volume II

The Lewis Publishing Company - 1905
Edited by Leigh H. Irvine