Humboldt County
Lumbering commenced in Humboldt County in 1850, but five years were to pass before any attention was paid the redwoods. The pioneer lumbermen were easterners from Maine and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, who were accustomed to the pine, spruce, and fir of their homes. They were familiar with these, and their kindred species, and their adaptability to the manufacture of lumber for use in the building trades, but because of the "in capacity" of the mills to handle the huge redwood logs and their ignorance of its adaptability for lumber, no redwood was shipped from Humboldt Bay until 1855.
By 1854 there were nine mills operating on Humboldt Bay. On several of the smaller streams flowing into Humboldt Bay, dams were built, so that a combination of the water stored in the pool and spring flooding could be employed to push the huge logs into the bay, where they could be rafted. When cutting commenced on Mad River, a narrow canal, eight feet wide, was cut from the river into the north arm of the bay. A boom was thrown across the mouth of Mad River to arrest the logs as they came down, after which they were shunted through the canal.
There was no place in the United States that had greater average thickness of logs sawn than here in the mills, and the mills were built with reference to this situation. The frames were large and strong, and the saws of proportionate length. Four types of saws were used: the single-gate, the gang-saws in a gate, the muley, and the circular.
