Yesterday’s photograph featured the dynamiting of the Westwood millpond and the freeze of 1949. There was a side affect of that freeze. The freeze reduced California’s citrus crop, and in turn reduced the need of wooden boxes and Fruit Growers box factories in Susanville and Westwood were temporarily closed. In May when the Westwood box factory re-opened, it was only with one shift. Continue reading Westwood’s Rumor Mill
In January 1949, the temperatures plummeted to nearly thirty degrees below zero. The millpond froze. When Red River designed the facility, they placed piping from the powerhouse that forced steam air directly into the millpond near the sawmill. This system was no match for Mother Nature. To keep the mill operating it was necessary to use dynamite to blast loose the logs in the millpond. Continue reading Westwood’s Frozen Millpond
First of all, coming from a family logging heritage, its still hard to fathom, that lumber mills no longer exist in Lassen County.
The two largest mills, Fruit Growers and Red River maintained two type of winter log decks. Usually, normal logging operations ceased in November. Yet, to keep the mills operating throughout the winter, required to have a substantial amount of harvested timber. There was the log deck at millpond, and then a second one out in the woods. The latter was not brought into the mill until spring, since the winter supply was nearly exhausted. The log decks in the woods provide enough ample supply during the transition, since it would take some time when the logging camps opened in the spring, to provide a steady supply to the mill.
Christmas trees had a slow start around these parts. During the 1860s and 1870s the Susanville Methodist Church would put up a community Christmas tree. By 1900, the area no longer a pioneer outpost and with more prosperous times some of the local populous would adorn their home with a tree.
After World War II Christmas trees became a regular holiday adornment in most homes. It also started to become big business. In 1950, Fruit Growers Supply Company implemented a Christmas tree farming lease program. In 1966, they sold over 70,000 Christmas trees for just over $100,000. Between 1950 and 1996 Fruit Growers sold 1,422,158 Christmas trees at an average price of $1.51 per tree.
Fruit Growers Supply Company had a total of eleven railroad logging camps. Technically, the longest operating, Camp 10, should have been named Camp 11.
Of these camps, three were quite small and operated for only one logging season during the 1920s. The first was Camp E at Merrill Flat. It was followed by tiny and peculiar Camp Y. Then there was Camp 9, which from most accounts only housed timber fallers. Unlike the other camps that had portable wooden buildings these camps had canvas-wooden tents.
This lumber community, now gone, played an important role in Lassen County’s history. Hilt, Siskiyou County, California was located near the Oregon border. In 1907, two events occurred that had a profound impact on that community. The Northern California Lumber Company and the Fruit Growers Supply Company were both formed that year. Fruit Growers it should be noted was a purchasing co-operative of the citrus growers, and still is today. In this period, all citrus and vegetables were shipped in wooden boxes. Shortly after the Northern California Lumber Company was formed they purchased the Hilt Sugar Pine Company. Continue reading Hilt, California
On October 30,1919, the Fruit Growers Supply Company purchased it from McKissick Cattle Company, for approximately $29,000. Fruit Growers anticipated using Bagwell Springs for a water supply and they would use the ranch land to provide winter pasture for the horses they used in logging. Fruit Growers constructed a water pipeline from the ranch to the mill, but it was never used due to litigation filed by other water right users. Fruit Growers briefly operated their own dairy there and, in 1923, leased it to the O’Kelly family who operated Lassen Dairy through the 1950s. In 1934, Fruit Growers offered to sell the ranch to the City of Susanville. Fruit Growers cited it would make an ideal golf course, that the money received from the golf course could be used to develop the remainder of the property into a park. The City liked the idea, but said no. In 1935, Fruit Growers sold the ranch to the Republic Electric Power Company who wanted to acquire Bagwell Springs as an additional water supply for Susanville. Over the years, that Company went through numerous reorganizations and became CP National. In 1984, CP National donated the ranch to Lassen County, and it is now a county park.
An interesting footnote to the story is that Lassen Community College examined the property for a future campus back in the 1960s, but the asking price was too expensive.
As its name implies it was a real junction. The railroad constructed a spur to the south to Westwood. The Southern Pacific’s real goal was to extend the line north to Klamath Falls, Oregon. It was after all, the Red River Lumber Company’s intent to build several mills, the next one scheduled for near Lookout. By 1917, the Southern Pacific was anxious to extend the line north, but Red River was not ready. The mammoth mill at Westwood was more than it could handle. In the meantime, the Southern Pacific was nervous that its competitor the Western Pacific might extend a branch to Westwood and siphon off traffic, since Southern Pacific’s five-year all inclusive freight deal with Red River was about to expire.
Then came along World War I and that changed everyone’s plan. When the war ended, the nation went into a severe recession, so expansion was off the table for many. Red River kept adding more divisions to its lumber manufacturing plant. In the meantime, the Southern Pacific focused on the troubled Nevada-California-Oregon Railroad, as an alternative route north of Oregon, which it eventually did.
The site, it should be noted, also served as a junction for the railroad logging operations of the Fruit Growers Supply Company and the Lassen Lumber & Box Company.
Once upon a time, a person was not confined to deer hunting in a particular zone. By the 1940s with significant improvements to highways and automobiles opened a lot of territory to hunters, once the domain of locals.
The Fruit Growers Supply Company operated lumber mills in Hilt, Susanville and Westwood. While researching its history, I always came across some interesting material. Fruit Growers’ Annual Reports are a wealth of information. Before you think I am losing my sanity writing first about deer hunting and then lumber mills, there is a common thread.
The following is a most interesting excerpt from Fruit Growers’ 1946 Annual Report:
“Much of the country in which Company timber is located is considered to have good deer hunting, and the deer season opens at a time when the woods are in the driest conditions and when the fire hazard is the greatest. The handling of the large influx of people into the general Northern California area during the deer hunting season constitutes a very serious problems to all owners and agencies interested in timberlands. In 1946, hunters and their parties were registered as they entered Lassen County area, and during one week’s time, close to 5,000 automobiles and 13,000 individuals registered as potential deer hunters. Thus more hunters were checked into Lassen County than its normal population. Despite this, the Company was fortunate in its 1946 experience with forest fires.”
I know hardly anything about this photograph, however, for reasons unknown I just like it. It is a woods crew of Fruit Growers Supply Company working from Camp Ten in 1932. Notice the two men on the far left with quart bottles of milk. Does anyone know how the milk was kept somewhat cool?