Ron Dominguez, the top executive from 1971 to 1994, grew up on one of the Anaheim orange groves purchased by Disney for the park. "My house was right about where the Harpers Mill on Tom Sawyer's Island is now," he said. Mr. Dominguez spent his entire career at the park, starting as a ticket-taker on opening day and working his way up to the top spot. The massive overshot wheel of the old grist mill, turned by a tumbling stream of water channeled in a wooden flume.
Harpers Mill is named after the character, "Joe Harper", from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
