In 1914, Red River Lumber Company opened a private high school, that even included night courses for the benefit of the employees. In the fall of 1916, the high school was converted into a public one with an enrollment of forty students. Initially, the grammar and high school shared the same building, but with increasing enrollments it was determined the high school have a building of its own. In the fall of 1918, a new two-story high school was built adjacent to the grammar school. Dedication of the new high school did not occur until March 8, 1919. Red River paid for the construction of the high school, which normally residents of the school district would have passed a bond measure to do so. However, the State of California paid the teacher’s salaries.
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 mill supply was nearly exhausted. The log decks in the woods provide enough logs 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.
It should be noted the decked logs in the woods, were protected with heavy snows, thus preventing checking or blue stain.
This was a real misnomer, for it was not a hotel, but a boarding house in Westwood. Built in 1913, it was one of the first rooming houses constructed there for Red River’s employees. It was a substantial structure with 250 rooms. Initially it housed Spaniards, though in time many of them relocated across the millpond to Old Town. It was destroyed by fire on March 30, 1918.
Reloading logs at Camp 14, Lake Almanor—Minnesota Historical Society
One of the challenges that Great Western Power Company encountered building the dam that created Lake Almanor was the removal of pine timber. They estimated between Almanor and other other reservoir site of Butt Valley that there was 200 million board feet of timber. In 1911, Great Western contacted the Red River Lumber Company who at that time still had not decided where they would construct its first mill. In July 1913, after much wrangling the two reached an agreement. Great Western would pay RedRiver one dollar per thousand board feet of pine timber removed—approximately $200,000. Red River estimated the cost at $500,000.
With the agreement, and time being of the essence as the dam would be complete and the flooding to create Lake Almanor would begin by the spring of 1914. That fall Red River put its loggers at a frantic pace to fall some 80 million board feet of timber, which would be subjected to initial flooding.
In the spring of 1914, Red River using a gasoline launch boat, would float the timber to the east side of the newly created lake by Big Springs. From there the logs were reloaded onto railroad cars and shipped to Westwood for milling. They would repeat a similar procedure in 1924 at Butt Valley and again in 1926 when Lake Almanor was enlarged.
Some readers may recall awhile back when I wrote about the 1913 Suppression/Control Burns at Clear Creek. Forest officials who attended documented that event, whether those records exist is not known, discussion about that a little bit later.
The other day, while reviewing the Lassen Mail, one of two Susanville newspapers, in the Westwood section contained a very short piece concerning news reels doing an educational piece about forest fires, one in particular filmed at Westwood. For those of a younger generation or two, newsreels, which were short educational/documentary pieces previewed in movie theaters and schools. They would eventually go by the wayside with the advent of television.
Anyhow, the Lassen Mail reported on April 30, 1926 12;3 – Fire Pictures for News Reels—One of the news reel companies have a company in Westwood this week making pictures of methods of fire fighting used in the timber industry. A fire was set in order on Wednesday and the fire train rushed to the scene, pictures of various operations being secured.
Westwood’s Fire Train courtesy of Doug Luff
Do the films exist, is an interesting question. I am aware of numerous movies filmed in the region during the 1920s and 30s, but each of those film’s existence has been problematic to locate. Then again, I am aware those who filmed the Westwood Strikes of the 1930s, and offered to share them, but that never panned out. Another instance, Leslie “Les” Mastolier, for seasoned residents founder of Susanville’s Leslie’s Jewelry, was an avid photographer, but also cinematographer. Les filmed everything from skiing down Diamond Mountain in the 1930s, to numerous wildlife studies and interesting community events for decades. His son, Gary, a Alaska resident, contacted me that he had his father’s collection of films and offered the films. That never materialized, so who knows the fate of those films. The bottom line is you just never when and where some interesting archives will surface.
In 1912, witnessed the Red River Lumber Company’s westward expansion from Minnesota to California. The founder, T.B. Walker, turned the enterprise over to his four sons. The site selected at Mountain Meadows, Lassen County initially had no name. Rather peculiar in my thinking that a company is going to spend $3 million to build a mill and company town, and it does not even have name.
Fletcher Walker was in charge of the new town and would be its resident manager. On October 3, 1912 he wrote to the Red River board, i.e., his brother’s soliciting a name. In his letter he wrote:
“I have thought over the name TRRLCO, first letter each word and the abbreviation of company, and talked it over with Clinton and Della [Walker]. They are not very enthusiastic over the name but said it seems like a good business name and sounded pretty good. I have written you on several occasions mentioning the name, but up to present time have not had a very enthusiastic adopting of the name. It seems that unless someone else can come through with a better name that we should officially adopt it.”
There was a sense of urgency as they needed a name to submit an application to the postal authorities. Several names were bounced around including Fletcher’s favorite, “City of Trees.” That, too, was rejected, and the name of Westwood was decided, though it is not known who coined it.
In the past we have explored the topic of control burnsby the Red River Lumber Company. With the fire situation at hand, this is going to be discussed widely across the West.
First a bit of background. Clinton Walker, a member of the family owned Minnesota based Red River Lumber Company came to California in 1899 to examine timberland as part of a westward expansion. By 1908, the Company had acquired nearly 800,000 acres of timberland primarily in Lassen, Plumas, Shasta and Siskiyou Counties. Long before the Company cut down a single tree, it had been conducting light/control burns throughout its holdings.
In the spring of 1912, Clinton Walker had planned to do a control burn at Clear Creek, Lassen County. He invited both state and federal foresters to observe. Coert DuBois of the U.S. Forest Service led the call to inform Walker to cease and desist and not do it. Walker ignored their pleas and it went ahead as schedule. He did invite those foresters to attend and they reluctantly showed up. They documented the event by taking notes and photographs (would that be a treasure to locate). Dubois who had been critical of the Walkers and their methods, routinely wrote opinion pieces in the west coast newspapers. He did a 360 degree, and complimented Walker on his systematic light burning approach.
Things changed quickly. The following year, Clinton Walker left Red River over a dispute with the family about its operations. Thus, the light and control burns were suspended. Twenty years later, Clinton would return. At that he time lamented about the neglect of their forests and wrote: “I have never been able to understand why, when we had successfully proven the feasibility of the work of control burns and its advantages, that we discontinued it. In this regard I think we committed a grevious error that has already caused us staggering losses and now have our forest in a very precarious condition.”
Some times I find it strange to write about the lumber industry that is non-existent in area, with the exception of Collins Pine at Chester. The above photograph are real premium peeler logs. These logs were literally peeled into sheets of plywood. Unlike regular logs that went through the sawmill, these logs were cut into eight foot lengths, unlike the standard thirty-two foot log. In 1924, Red River Lumber Company invested a half-million dollars to add a veneer plant at its Westwood facility. Red River used the trademark Paul Bunyan’s Pine Plywood for its final product. Red River, like so many other lumber companies, did not allow anything to go to waste. The peeler cores were made into railroad ties.
There was a question posed about a dike/levee across Walker Lake also known at Mountain Meadows Reservoir south of Westwood. The above map shows a railroad logging line of the Red River Lumber Company, which the raised railroad bed, would appear as a dike/levee. Note, this map is prior to 1922 and the creation of the lake. So it appears, that at times when the lake is low, the railroad bed appears. Whether this still occurs, is not known, but one would think a century later, it would have finally eroded away.
Walker Lake aka Mountain Meadows Reservoir—David Zoller
In 1916, after the Red River Lumber Company met its initial contractual obligation with Great Western Power Company to harvest timber for the Lake Almanor reservoir site, they began logging their lands to the west of Westwood.* Red River focused harvesting all the timber between Westwood and Chester, which included the Lake Almanor peninsula. In 1920/21 Red River had logging spurs going in north/south direction—the northerly one along Bailey Creek, the other south to the Peninsula. The latter, Red River established a sole logging camp No. 29. The peninsula was unique, especially towards the lower end was forested with fir—not pine. The fir at that time was considered to have no value whatsoever, even to use as fuel for the locomotives. By 1922, Red River’s mission accomplished for that area met, and their main line rails made it to its intended destination on the south side of Chester.
*Red River received a reprieve from Great Western, since that company scaled back the initial flooding of the reservoir site by half.
