Mendocino Lumber Company

The sawmill began operation in 1853 as the Redwood Lumber Manufacturing Company, and changed ownership several times before cutting its final logs in 1938.

The sawmill site became part of the Big River Unit of Mendocino Headlands State Park where a few features of the mill and its associated forest railway are still visible along the longest undeveloped estuary in northern California.

Williams took a shortcut across the isthmus of Panama in the spring of 1852 to survey the Big River in advance of machinery delivery aboard the brig Ontario.

It was comparatively easy to float logs to the sawmill from trees cut along the shoreline of the estuary, and ships carried the lumber to San Francisco.

Several dozen dams were built on Big River tributaries upstream of the pool to impound water for sudden release to float log downstream during other seasons.

The Laguna Creek branch line trestle across Big River was replaced by a Howe truss bridge in the winter of 1919-1920.

[3] Locomotive number 1 arrived in July 1901 to improve overland transport of logs from the remaining forests to the pool five miles upstream of the sawmill.

After replacing the teams on 18 August 1900, the cab length was gradually reduced repairing damage from various woods mishaps over the years until it resembled conventional locomotives.

Grammar school students Alden and Art Rice, considered the best local swimmers, were paid $50 each to brave the cold, 20-foot (6.1 m)-deep water stringing steel recovery cables under the submerged locomotive.

There she rusted away through World War II until Union Lumber Company bulldozers built a road for the scrapping crew.

It had been rebuilt as a 2-4-4 tank locomotive at Fort Bragg, officially retired from California Western service before 1917, and recorded as sold to Mendocino Lumber Company in 1918; but was not delivered until five years later.