According to the National Park Service, the first successful mill in Humboldt County was established in 1852. James T. Ryan and James Duff shipped their sawmill machinery from San Francisco aboard a steamer. As the ship entered Humboldt Bay, some of the sawmill equipment was washed overboard. Undaunted, the ship was driven aground and the ship's engines converted to run the sawmill that Ryan and Duff built on the beach. Soon, the mill was sawing spruce, fir, and pine, but not redwood, at least not yet, because of the tree's massive size.
In 1854, William Carson operated the Hula Mill. According to the book "Redwood Empire," Carson sawed only smaller redwood logs at his mill and soon shipped 20,000 board feet of redwood lumber to San Francisco. There, the rot-resistant wood became a commercial success, commanding premium prices.
By the mid-1850's, lumber mills sprang up around Humboldt Bay as lumber schooners carried redwood up and down the coast, according to the Humboldt County Convention and Visitors Bureau. By 1854, nine mills operated on Humboldt Bay, according to the National Park Service.
Several mill owners formed the Humboldt Lumber & Manufacturing Company and shipped more than 20 million feet of lumber in 1854. According to the Pacific Historical Review's "History of the Lumber Industry in Humboldt County," several customers who bought on credit from the lumber company skipped paying their bills. This forced several Humboldt Lumber and Manufacturing Company mills to suspend operations and it took years for the lumber mills to recover.
In 1860, Humboldt County ranked second in the state for lumber production, sawing 30 million feet a year. Seven feet was the most common redwood diameter sawed, according to the book "Resources of California."
To meet the fast growing demand for redwood, most of the county's lumber mills dotted the shores of Humboldt Bay. There they could mill, load and ship the redwood, spruce, fir and cedar that, according to the National Park Service, was helping build the city of San Francisco.
By now, many of the lumber mills were custom built, featuring stronger frames and longer saws that were able to cut the massive redwood logs that stood for up to a thousand years before being felled by loggers.
By 1914, eleven large lumber mills operated in Humboldt County. According to the Davis Commercial Encyclopedia of the Pacific Southwest, the mills had enough combined sawing power to cut 1.5 million feet of lumber per day, or about 450 million feet of lumber a year.
In Samoa, The Hammond Lumber Company's sawmill was the largest in Humboldt County in the early 1900's. During World War I, the complex was converted into a shipyard where seven wooden steam-ships were built, according to the book "The Redwood Lumber Industry."
Founded in 1854, Falk once employed 400 workers at the Elk River Lumber Company. According to the Humboldt County Convention & Visitors Bureau, the town thrived for 50 years.
Falk was built to be self-sufficient. It had to be. It took and hour by stage to reach Eureka. Falk had a cookhouse, post office, several houses, a general store, and a dance hall, according to GhostTowns.com.
The company town revolved around the bustling lumber mill that supported the families of the men who worked in this isolated site. By the Great Depression, the mill shut its doors and faded to ghost town status in the1950's. In 1979, the abandoned town was razed by the Sierra Pacific Lumber Company.
The Pacific Lumber Company Mill in Scotia, California was once the world's largest redwood mill, according to the city's website. Founded in 1863, Pacific Lumber once employed 1,600 workers. According to the Los Angeles Times, it also owned the world's largest privately owned ancient redwood groves.
In the 1920's, Pacific Lumber pioneered sustainable forestry practices. It never cut more lumber than it could replant. For generations, this practice kept the company's mills buzzing, employee jobs secure and profits steady.
Things changed in 1986. According to the Journal of Humboldt County, Maxxam Corporation launched a hostile takeover of Pacific Lumber. Pacific Lumber went bankrupt in 2007, devastating the company town of Scotia.
Pacific Lumber was reorganized into the Humboldt Redwood Company which runs a scaled back milling operation in Scotia.
