Sturgeon's sawmill : history and steam in the California redwoods

The California coastal redwood has been an important commercial number for more than 100 and 50 years. It's found only in a narrow band along the northern coast, beginning at Santa Cruz, south of San Francisco and extending north to the Oregon border. All no more than 40

miles from the ocean in Sonoma County. 60 miles north of San Francisco. Records indicate that a sawing operation was underway at Freestone as early as 18 37. This involved a pit saw hand labor and produced only a small amount of lumber. In 18 40 Juan Cooper

erected the first commercial mill in California using water power. It was at Rancho El Molino but was soon damaged by floodwaters. The water powered mills were probably in, in probably about 20 different places in this county, but uh they really were low on production and they

were subject to the limitations of how much water was available. So sometimes they could saw in the winter time and then of course, they had to quit as soon as there wasn't enough water to run the saw. In 18 41 Captain Stephen Smith received extensive land

grants from the Mexican government. In return for establishing the first steam saw mill on the West coast at Bodega. It was in operation by 18 42 and soon cut most of the timber in that area. The early period of redwood logging in Sonoma was hampered by

the difficulty in transporting of logs to the mills and finished product to market. This limited activity to areas close to the coast where sailing and later steam schooners could load from markets to the south. In 18 77 the completion of the North Pacific Coast railroad opened

the way for more extensive logging mills sprang up all over the Russian river basin. In 18 83 Captain John Dol Beer invented his steam powered donkey engine which permitted moving logs in terrain far too difficult for horse or ox teams. One of the problems of getting

the redwood logs to the mill was the fact that that was labor intensive and of course, they logged usually in the hills surrounding an area where a mill was because they had to use uh either bulls or uh or they had the roller logs down the

hill. Usually they had uh skid roads. Mills said Duncan mills, Meeker, Tyrone Moscow mills and Markham produced hundreds of thousands of board feet of lumber, most of which was shipped out to San Francisco. It could be said that lumber from Sonoma built San Francisco twice once

in the 18 eighties and again after the earthquake and fire of 19 6. The story of Sturgeon's mill begins in 1913 when Wade Sturgeon purchased equipment from the Corbell family who had used it to cut wood for cigar boxes. As early as the late 18 eighties,

he set up a mill in Coleman Valley and was sawing by July of 1914, cutting from the surrounding area until 1923. When the trees ran out some time before 1922 the mill in Coleman Valley was running short of timber to cut and the thought was that

they had to relocate the mill to a place where they had an adequate supply of timber. Well, tearing down a saw mill isn't probably as easy as building one. Wade Sturgeon then moved the mill to its present location. And eventually his son, Ralph took over the

operation. The mill stands today much as it was in 1923 preserved by Ralph and his partner Jim Hennington. Ok. My name is Ralph Sonoma Sturgeon. I was born in November the 23rd, 19 07 off Joy Road. There was a two story building. My brother was born

this later in 1911. I was born in 19 7. So there you got a good roll of dice. I lived with my grandmother up on the Joy Road where I was born and walked from occidental up there and uh and bought the groceries at Taylor's store

every night. I'd take home through groceries. But anyhow, the cold mornings we would get into the locomotive that was being fired up. I think his name Bob was a, it was an engine wiper and we'd sit in there until the bus came, the bus came there

and II I had already graduated in 1920. So I went back to grammar school for one more year, took weeks bookkeeping and a few things. But anyhow, when the bus came, I went to an so is where I met James E Henson. My name is James

Einer Hannington. And I was born in Berkeley and I was, my folks moved up here to San Sebastopol in 1912 and we lived in a little valley down here. They called uh what did they call that valley? And as we grew up there, this was during

the depression in 1915 and the folks were pretty well broke. And so we got to eat and we, we did raise chickens and we raised hugs or pigs. And so between the hogs and the pigs, why we ate meat? All right. But most of it was

meat, meat, potatoes and beans. And then the next day would be beans, potatoes and meat. And if that's the way we change the menu, went to high school, which was six miles from where we lived. And I walked every damn bit of that both ways until

they got a bus on the last year I was in school. So I walked three years, six miles each way. But now when you're talking about bringing him in the area, he was born in Larry. Well, after he lost his father, grandma moved my dad and

my aunt, what is now known as Joy Road. And she bought a piece of property up there. And then he grew up there. 1900 is when he started to carry a di write a diary. 1900 we had a terrible for fire in occidental area. He was

uh he was marshall. Then every district had a, a fire marshal. See, and he was only 22 but he is fire marshal anyhow. Then he got back into the wood business, uh bark split stuff. And he had a partner named uh Bill Kwell, which I have

the story of his life too. And they worked up until about 19. Let's see. Along back to 1912 or 13 is when he started to be, begin to think he'd like to go into sawmill. They weren't making any money anyhow. And he got in, he made

less. But the name of Sugarman in Santa Rosa that handled uh use material from sawmills down. So he bought the, I see. How was it? Sugarman had it first and then I had it next. And dad had to pay $700 for the sawmill. They set it

up. Well, let's see. Anyway, they had it run in 1914 because we have the pictures that my, my dad had a photographer over there and took the, showed the pictures of logging and saw milling. Then in 1920 1923 we run the mill and I worked there

on the 40 mile. It was only three men and myself. And then from, from Coleman Valley, he acquired two. It was known as Sturgeon's Mill. Then and when we moved over here was known, known as and Sturgeon there, there was, there was three and, and, and

Mr John, uh I don't think that either of them could ever made a go of it. The, the two of them was the com the combination is what, what made the So yeah, all the, the sales were local, everybody backing you, you had little money. You

had a lot of friends in doing an inventory of, of uh small sawmill operations in the county. There, there were just uh probably in, in number 30 or 40 over the years. And what they did was to a large degree supply the local market. Sometimes there

would be mills 10, 12 miles apart that still found enough market in that area to take care of, of making a living at it. But anyway, when we started, Ralph came down, I was working in San Francisco in the building trades down there. And Ralph came

down one Sunday with his family and asked me to, if I would like to go into business with him here. And so I finally made up my mind that maybe that would be a good thing to do. And so the, uh, Ralph and I shook hands,

never signed any papers or anything. And we went on with our business for, I forget how many years before we incorporated. I sold my house in San Francisco and I bought this home. It was a nice home too. This is way back in. Well, it was

early part of forties, somewhere late, late thirties. I bought it for 3000 bucks. You can't believe it. And then I got my FH A and I paid 25 $25 a month for, for was my rent or payments on the house. And, uh, the, uh, I just

couldn't believe it anyhow, I sold, sold the house. Then when Ralph told me and, and I sold the house for $5000 and I came up here and I told Ralph, I says, here's 5000 bucks. I says, when this is gone, I says we're out of business

but the, the $5000 kept us going and, and, uh, that was it. And then when we incorporated, we went over to the lawyer and wanted to start this incorporation and the lawyer says, ok, it says, bring on over your papers, your partnership papers and everything I

says, we ain't got any papers. I says, and he says, you mean that you haven't got any papers at all? And I said, no, sir, I says, Ralph and I shook our hands and says this is it. We agreed to it. But when we were broke,

why we're out of business. So that's the way it ended. And so we kept going for 21 years anyway. I started with Ralph Sturgeon here, uh, working for about a, I'd say a year in, in, uh, in the, uh, in the mill. And from there on,

I, uh, I worked on the outside waiting on customers and taking orders and, and so forth and, and uh we didn't have a, we didn't have an office. And so I was, went to work and built myself an office across the crick here. And uh I

was pretty busy on the, on the, the sales end of it, uh, and getting, getting logs and so forth. And there was three of us really that operated this mill to start with because you go out and fall logs and I helped to peel and then

when we got them hauled in here and we saw the few logs and had some lumber to sell. Then you guys Andrew and you would go back out and fall and I'd stay here and sell the, the lumber. And then when it was all through, I,

I'd go back out and help you fellas out there and then your brother come into the picture. It got, it got. So he got to sell so much lumber that actually I was hauling, hauling the logs in, besides working in the woods with his brother. It

just got going so good that I, I had to quit the woods. The first, the teams here right in close. You see, right in here with a few 100 yards. Well, see, Craig, he had a big family and, and his team was a combination of all

horses. I mean, there was no particular breed. It, there was a large horses but they, not like you're talking about here. The, the ones that pulled the beer wagons and all that on display. See, but he, he and a fellow, a neighbor down here were true

teamsters and I seen him log here pulling out logs and the generally with the horses after two or three pulls, they would walk, they wouldn't pull anymore. They just give up and say the hell with it collar. People think about horses pulling things. They don't really

pull, they, they push their load with their shoulders, they're pushing into it. And these are the tugs or traces and this is, delivers the angle of draft is from this point in their shoulders down to the log or whatever it is. Boy, the horses, it all,

it depend on the teamster strictly on the teamster as soon as you hook it or start on it. The fellow down here, his name, he, he was the one that had two horses. Also. You, you, you just cry when you're watching them. They, they, they had

such a way with animals. And neither one of these men cursed, which was amazing. Yeah, I thank you. Mhm. Good boys. And then the, the thing was, was to get the log

to some type of a landing where they could roll it on to a wagon. And then from the wagon, that was another, usually only two horses here, they get it to the, to the landing here at the mill and unload it and then go back. But

the, uh, the, the, the Logan was done with the horses was done only where he could use horses when it got to quite steep and, and gullies, then the team couldn't handle it. Even if you use blocks. Take too long. So that's when they got the

idea of going, getting the donkeys. Of course, they already knew about the donkeys, the steam donkeys. Well, you also going back to the Logan days that when we're using steam, the last, you use the steam, this particular machine, you see when you go to, we had

it down here in the flat and we had a stiff leg and a bra log and I used it the, uh, the doors truck or sometimes the trailer to haul the logs up here. He run the donkey and did the spool stand all himself. That thing

got so much power you took on a 40 inch, 40 inches in diameter, 16 ft long, wouldn't even pant. It just goyl, this is a little plump over here that feed the water into the boiler here and this is the boiler with upright tubes in it

up. Here is the water glass that you've got to watch all the time. See that it's not, it doesn't run dry. This would be the place for you put the fire in. But here, here's the Chinaman, here's the Chinaman's quote from, he says, hot water 20

minutes and you got steam, cold water one hour and you got steam in the morning. You come down early in the morning and fire it up and get your pressure up. There's a steam gauge over over here to give you around between 40 60 £60. Yes,

ma'am. Here's a, here's a, here's a break here in case you want to throw it in this, this place over here to throw this out of, out of gear. And as you can see, you don't need much pressure right now to keep it idly and it

steam engine, steam engines. They, they just chuck along real quietly. This here is the to this, we, we in the old age, you can't say that anymore, but that's what they used to call a *** head. This is the, that's the big gear gear that turns

it. They pull up above this portion here. I don't know, I don't anymore, I guess, but this used to spin whichever direction you were pulling from logging and putting the ropes up putting a, uh, locked up on the deck, why we put three wrapped cables dropped

down on the, on the side there. And if you was out in the, out in the woods, why you'd have the line out in the woods and then take three wraps around and keep, keep pulling this thing when you, when you didn't want any or you

just push back and with Idol, you wouldn't have any and loves moving towards you from places you'd set blocks. It'd be down here and have a block over there to pull it up to position there and then pull it straight in. He had a natural way.

Uh, he didn't slip anything, he didn't rush anything. It was all kind of a natural with him, you know, uh, kind of slow and easy and we got the log up there. Chucky, Chucky, Chuck, nothing slip, nothing burning, nothing falling apart. One time I left my

boots down in there after work and my partner came up and was checking the engine over and any, uh, started it up and grabbed my boot up. So I had to buy a new pair of boots years ago when we were piling logs down at the

mill. My wife and her sister came from, her sister was from Washington and she came down to watch us, put the logs up on the, on the deck and there was a log, little log behi behind him. They were standing there watching and all of a

sudden the tube blew in and this thing here and it shot down and hit the ash pit here and ashes flew all over. And my wife and sister says, and back up and over they went and all you saw was a pair of legs sticking up

in the air. Yes, she's got in mind. Got to cut this log around a little bit and roll her up there about another 25 30 ft. We can get her on the carry. It's called a becket hooked to a bull wheel. Found it. We used to

unload the log to this right here. The trucks would pull up there and we load the unload the logs. We would uh take the, the log, the big log up here and uh, what they did all these trees, every one of them has what when the

wind blows, you've looked at a tree and it goes like this here and, and it has what they call a wind check in it. There's a split in the, in the log. You, when you saw it, you see that check in there. So you turn it,

we, anyhow, we turned it up so that the, the split was pretty vertical and then we'd bore a hole according to that split. And Ralph told you yesterday we filled it with black powder and plugged it up and set it off. Ok. Slash.

Ok. Just remain. So this is an old Atlas steam engine, I believe it develops about 50 horsepower. And I was told by Ralph that it came out of an old Saline schooner. And then it went to

the Corbell Brothers where the Corbell famous Corbell Champagne is now produced. They started off as cigar makers and they originally bought this equipment to cut wood for cigar boxes. And then they discovered that San Francisco had more of a use for timbers and lumber to produce

the building that went on from the gold rush in the city. And so they, they cut all the redwood uh out in Ville until there was no more redwood. And then it became known as Stumptown. And then they said, well, what are we going to do

now? And one of the brothers had been a champagne maker in Austria and he said, well, let's make champagne. And so they no longer needed the equipment and they sold the steam engine, the head rig, which is a Joshua Hendy head rig and the carriage and

everything to Wade Sturgeon, which is Ralph Sturgeon's father. And it was moved to Coleman Valley and they cut all the timber down there. And then they moved it to this canyon and it's been here ever since the boiler no longer is functional. And so today we

have it hooked up to an air compressor. Well, my interest in steam engines goes way back to my family. I have a, um, a great grandfather many times, many times, grandfather that, uh invented the first steam locomotive back in 18 02. And it was always kind

of fun to have a little history. And I got a chance to work with this. Harvey gave me a chance and we came over and saw this mill and saw this old steam engine, this thing and we've kind of been working on it a little bit

and cleaning things up around here, putting together some of the beams that have rotted away. And, uh, now finally we got a little air going into this thing and we've got this thing turning and it's just so exciting. There's a valve that slides back and forth

here and it shifts the air from one side of the cylinder to the other and then the air shoves, it's got two strokes. So it pushes 11 direction and dumps out through the exhaust and then pushes back. So it's pushing both ways. Uh, so it's got

not like a gasoline engine where you've just got one power stroke. The running, this thing on air has been kind of interesting, even though we have a lot of air pressure and we've got quite a bit of volume. It still doesn't have the power that we

thought that we might get. And we've decided that steam because of the expansion rate that it has gives it a lot more power. I've been to England, I've been to the Royal British Museum and saw Richard's great, great, great, great, great granddaddy's invention. And to have

Richard here, the same first name, same last name as the man that invented that locomotive there. It just seems like fate and Providence. And the last time this mill ran was 36 years ago. And I think it's just a miracle. It's absolutely a miracle that this

thing is still running and it's a miracle that Ralph saved it. I look at this engine, I look at this whole mill. It's the dawn of the industrial revolution that's still preserved. Here in Western Sonoma County, the whole communication system for this mill was around that

whistle that you just heard. There's a wire that goes to every place in the mill and the Sawyer has just signaled the engineer to say, Boo boo, let's go. And so we would return that signal and that means here it comes. So here it comes. It

just running as sweet as it ever did when I was a kid. And I'm sure it's running as sweet as it ever did when the Corbell Brothers had it. When you think that this engine is 100 years old or more. It's just remarkable. Here

it goes. So here we are, we're at full speed right now and there was no tachometer or anything like that to show how fast the steam engine went. But you know, it was at the right speed when the, when the spokes disappeared. Yeah,

what you tell. Yeah, ready. That means there, there was Bob set blocks from me when he was 12 years old. Now we're logging, we cut, uh, over 18,000. I gave the crew four bits, four bits 1000 and we cut everything from a one

by two up. They brought it here in 1923 from Coleman Valley and they brought it all over on solid wheel tires and they put it together here with a head rig just enough to saw lumber so they could

saw enough lumber to go ahead and build a mill. Yeah. And they built a little cabin over here across the way my grandparents lived in and that was just temporary. They lived here for 44 years, I believe until they died. Yeah, they didn't have any pressure,

water. They had gravity feed water outside toilet and a cook stove right up till they died. And that was in the late fifties, early sixties, but no inside toilet. Yeah, I standing around that burner in the coming in wintertime some morning cold. But we stand on

the bus. We used to do that a lot of times in lunch time. Well, they, uh, go there. My dad, I can remember my dad getting the c clankers out of the sawmill. I mean, out of the burner because they have a, a blower to keep

the sawdust burning and the holes where the air would come out would get. But I guess the clinker has melted sawdust is all it is. And it turns into glass. Yeah. And it gets all the holes all jammed up. So you had to get a bar

and open them, some guns up to keep them holes open. So the saws would burn. And this whole damn canyon come Monday morning when he fired it up from about seven on this whole cannon cleared to grate and lots of mornings would just have a layer

of smoke on it. Yeah. Nowadays you'd probably go directly to jail for polluting pollution. Uh Yeah, there was a lot of good guys. Here was 13 guys on the floor as I count them two guys on the landing. Two guys here, one guy off barren, one

edger man, one off, bear off the edge of man. Two trim men, two trimmer men, one fireman that should be 13 and then out on the green chain, there was two more and you got on the landing. Yeah, 13 guy when the guy come in little

logs and roll his truck clear upside down. Well, yeah, we were talking about that was the one that I was the one that did it. I stopped and told him the block underneath the cheese block, you know, and he wouldn't do it and he got mad

and cussed me out. And so I just kept, he said, take this son of a bitch on over. He was unloading it. He was unloading it with a bull wheel and it was in a big saddle and it was a brand new 41 international. Yeah, three

axle. And, uh, the guy says take the song on, on, off here an old Virgil laid into it and laid the truck right upside down a side, right on the side. Yeah, it works by that. I knew what I was gonna do. But the way you

said it, I just did it. So remember how fast that lumber used to come out of that plan. I used to take that song in high gear. Holy Mack and one by Sixes. Cheating. Just go, go, go, go, go that whoever was stacking lumber on the

truck and you had to stick every, every, every about every third row too besides catching it. Yeah. Do you ever do that? Gym? Work off the end of the plan. Yeah. Two more. Two or four. Hit me right in the head. You remember that day? Knocked

me to my knees by four footer. Come off the Roy Fuller. Do it to you. I don't know. Somebody did it there. Lumber. I load of lumber that you. Yeah. The truck's got, uh, 13 gears forward and four back. Yeah. And I can remember my dad

logging out of, out of with it. No, not Co Valley Joy Road. Right up in your neck of the woods. Yeah. 34 loads and then in the hot weather in July. Uh, the pavement would be so hot that the solid wheel tires would sink in, make

ruts in the black top. About that deep boy, the county, the boys didn't like that at all. It's all his wheel tires. That was the good old days. This old truck was a Doris. It's a four cylinder thing with, uh, with solid tires. And we use

it for logging for, well, I guess two years we use it as a logging logging truck. It, uh, it just was a slow pace when you, you could get off and, and just hang on to the wheel and walk along there very, very easy. No, no,

no speed at all. Crank that thing. And boy, sometimes it would really kick you and it was a hard old to crank. But, uh, after got going, it was all the old thing is a four, as I said, then it go after it warmed up. It

was really a, it was a good old truck. The neighborhood blacksmith was an essential part of the operation of all early sawmills. In addition to the shooting of horses and oxen, he made and repaired the rigging, hardware and mill components. Today, the Black Smith is fabricating

a new dogging in bar for use on the mill's carriage. If we're going to make several, these, I'd have another one heating up in here. But since we're only gonna make one this afternoon, but we'll just work with one piece green coals here on the side

and want to feed it in. It turns the Coke and Cos what's burning give you the intense heat and fairly clean here. Yeah, we've got it, little cone shape on there. We will be one end of it. Beverly, this has got a bevel on the end

here. It's not the same all the way around and it's got a slight hook so it'll stay in the ring. Takes quite a bit of heat to bend the hook. Now we'll bend a hook into it. Come,

I want it to be at least orange or orange to yellow, orange, yellow color. Or else you just have to hit it too hard. If you hit cold iron, you just wear your arm out and it doesn't bend where you want to so

we can just cool it with, we cool it, we put it in the quench and water quench and it cools it and it just hardens it there. You have the finished end of the handle ready to weld on the other part. Fantastic. Very typical operation in

blacksmith shop, I think. Take a break. Give the saw a rest sharpen job. The guys a rest have a smoke, have a drink of water. But in this case, we hit a rock so we got to touch up the saw a little bit. Think about 15

minutes. I think there's 62 teeth on this thing or 32. Give them about 10 turns and then you look at them and feel them. If they're sticky, they're sharp, that's sharp enough. Good enough for the girls. We got it about 15 minutes for this grinder. Took

my dad about 10 minutes with a bastard flat file. Getting it about this angle. He'd make about four strokes and beat this, but he was the only one that could do it. He had to have the light just right shine right in here to see that.

See if it got dull. And it was kind of important that these rings. This is a small ring that holds a tooth in that they were nice and flat on top with nice sharp edges to get the sawdust out. If it, if it got to be

rounded, they wouldn't pull the sawdust out good and the saw would run hot and then they'd have to check him for sideways too. He'd have a little mallet and a piece of iron. He knocked them either one way or the other. They had to be nice

and straight. Sometimes you hit a knot or something and you whack one. That's how you got the 2000. There's a tooth. Whoa, you have, thank you. Never mind. No. Then to put it back in, you just reverse the process. You know, it's been about 30 years

since I've done this. So it might take a little second or two and you just went in there like that and you want to make sure you didn't slip and come down here and whack your finger on a sharp one. So you hold the thing with

the palm of your hand and just snugged it up, kind of like that. Then you took her out and you hit it and you could tell by the sound whether it was in or not, there was a little tap, you had to go lined it right

up. But these are all pretty good. Yeah, we sharpen it up and then uh 22 on the whistle and away. We go again. We got, we don't really have this. Just let's get down to work, Jim. Don't you go off, get up here in the car

and get the Yeah, it's amazing to me that if people run, you know what I mean here, what? 36 years got a little having fun. Yeah. To fulfill. See

something that's amazing. There is my dad's 90 years old. I'm taking that off today. Yeah. The nice, the Sturgeon's Mill reconstruction project. A nonprofit tax exempt organization is at work stabilizing and repairing the mill with the goal that it can once

again, saw with steam power, funds, expertise and energy are welcome. Please contact the group at the address shown your assistance will be of great value in preserving the mill for yet another generation.