Wagon wheel spindle?

[nuggett dog]

Found at a 1800’s sawmill today, any ideas? My first guess is a wagon wheel spindle. The small end is threaded, the do hickey looking thing on the outside looks like a grease hole with a hinged cover

 

[Ronstar]

Never seen anything quite like that before. If you’re anywhere around a working horseman or older cowboys I would ask them, they are usually pretty well tuned in to those types of things

 

[Jim in Idaho]

The wagon spindles I've found were longer....a good 6 or 7 inches. The wagon wheel hubs had to be longer to acommodate the thickness of the spokes.
Jim

 

[nuggett dog]

The wagon spindles I've found were longer....a good 6 or 7 inches. The wagon wheel hubs had to be longer to acommodate the thickness of the spokes.
Jim

Thanks Jim, after researching wagon spindles, I’ve pretty much came to the same conclusion. This find really has me puzzled, the sawmill in question is located in a dry area in northern Utah, so I assume the timber was processed by hand so that rules out any steam engine parts. The large end is open with a round axle looking thing I’m sure it was packed with grease. Thanks for your input

 

[Jim in Idaho]

Maybe it's a saw spindle? lots of old sawmills in your and my areas.
Jim

 

[nuggett dog]

Maybe it's a saw spindle? lots of old sawmills in your and my areas.
Jim

Half the fun was just locating this old mill, used an old hand drawn map along with a modern Topo map and that mill site was exactly where the old map said it was. If this item were a saw spindle, being in a dry canyon I wonder how they would of powered it?

 

[Jim in Idaho]

it looks more recent....like maybe around the early 1900's. Maybe steam? Or early gas engines...like a "hit and miss".
Jim

 

[kaolinwasher]

you can see what looks like a grease zerk but i dont know eather

 

[nuggett dog]

it looks more recent....like maybe around the early 1900's. Maybe steam? Or early gas engines...like a "hit and miss".
Jim

The mill was in operation from 1869 to 1888. Steam powered maybe, but they would have had to haul water in from 2 miles away. This really is a virgin site with many more good finds coming, plus they had another mill running 1 mile south at the same time, that one is going to be a challenge to find. That spindle was 15 inches down in very soft ground I’m thinking saw dust, it weighed approx 30 lbs and my friend carried it all the way back to the truck.