By 1914, Red River Lumber Company’s new company town was open for business. For years there had be lots of speculation while it kept buying vast amounts of timberland in Northern California. The press was eager to pay a visit and write about it. The Chico Record in August 1914 published an interesting article which was titled: “Is Westwood An Experiment? Away up in Lassen County, about twenty miles from Susanville, is the new town of Westwood, a city created within a year. It lies in the center of one of the largest and most valuable tracts of timberland in the United States, a tract of timber which until this year had never been touched by the ax or saw. Westwood is owned solely and exclusively by the Red River Lumber Company, which is but another name for Walker, the multi-millionaire of Minnesota, and his sons.
“Walker came into California a few years ago, and began to buy and
otherwise acquire timberlands in Shasta, Lassen, Butte and Plumas
counties, until it is said that he now owns one million acres of the
finest forests in the world. “With the building of the Southern Pacific railroad from Fernley into Lassen County came the opportunity to work these timber holdings and the Walkers grasped the opportunity. Alongside of a creek in the center of these holdings they established the town of Westwood, and are now completing their mills and factories. The mill is said to have the greatest capacity of any in the West, it being possible to cut one million feet of lumber a day, and at this rate it can be run for more than fifty years without exhausting the timber supply.
“Consequently Westwood is being built to endure. Water has been piped into the place from a point distant ten miles. A complete sewer system is being laid, streets and sidewalks built, streets well lighted, and several hundred residences built.
“Everything in Westwood is owned and controlled by the Walkers. No lots are sold and one cannot be bought. All the houses are rented to the employees, and the Walkers conduct a general merchandise store the equal of which is not found north of San Francisco. It contains everything for human needs from automobiles to a loaf of bread. An immense clubhouse is maintained, for Westwood has no saloons. A large moving picture theater is also conducted by Walkers, which on Sunday night is used as a church. If there is any profit to be made in Westwood, it is made by the Walkers, for no one else can do business there. It is stated, however, by most of the residents that prices are no higher then in other places, and in most instances they are lower.
“It will be interesting to note whether this ‘one-man’ town can be
made a success. It already contains about three thousand people for the Walker’s have on their payrolls about fifteen hundred employees. No one is asked to come to Westwood; there is no chamber of commerce seeking immigration. There are no properties for sale, hence no real estate agents. There is not even a newspaper.
“Doubtless in time there will arise dissatisfaction, for we are so
used to the competitive system in human affairs, that the average one is likely to resent the obligation to work for a man or company and in turn be compelled to live as the man or company directs and turn back most of his wages into channels that will carry them back to their source, even though in doing so a fair share is retained by the wage-earner.”
