Top Photograph, Daniels' Mill, July 1947. Courtesy Shelley
Daniels Knapp
Middle and bottom photographs, Miller's Mill, about 1942.
Courtesy Leona Herman Hawes.
Sawmills in the late 1800s provided the main
source of employment and cash income for Whitmore residents.
There were only ten sawmills in California in 1849. Then the lumber industry grew quickly
in the years 1850 to 1860, when California's population went from 93,000 to 379,000 . When
the railroad came to Shasta County in the 1870s, lumbering increased in the Whitmore area.
Most of the Whitmore area mills existed for one to three years, and operated in the summer
because the roads were impassible in winter. When the mill owner used up the trees near
his mill, he would move to a new site. Oxen or horses hauled the logs to the mill. The
loggers built slick surfaces to slide the heavy logs along the road, known as skid roads.
You used to be able to see parts of the skid roads at Atkins Creek. With the invention of
the steam donkey in 1881 and the steam tractor in 1894, most logs could be hauled on
wagons.
Wagons carried the lumber from the mills to Millville or Redding. Later, trucks came up
the gravel road to Whitmore to pick up the lumber and take it to local finishing mills or
to the railroad. |
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