More Humboldt County Logging History

Originally I was going to talk more on the history of the logging industry in general. But, I've decided to write about how that history affects us here at Redwood Burl Inc. today.              As I left off, the invention of the band saw mill enabled loggers to cut tremendous amounts of wood. This required a lot of logging to be done. At first logging was done using axes and whip saws, the lumber was pulled by oxen along the skid trials to a waterway or flume and floated into Humboldt Bay. It was then milled into lumber at one of the many bayside lumber mills.              In the simplest setting, a line-horse carried a cable to the felled timber. The cable was attached to the log. On signal, the steam donkey's engineer would open the regulator, allowing the steam donkey to drag the log towards it. It was then taken either to a mill or to a landing where the log would be shipped by rail or river. If a steam donkey was to be moved, one of its cables was attached to a tree, stump, or other strong anchor. The machine would drag itself overland to the next yarding location.              During this time a lot of places were clear cut. During the process there was some breakage. Most trees were cut by sawyers standing on springboard sometimes 6 or 7 feet off the ground. This resulted in a lot of stumps left behind. Once the trees were cut, they were High Graded. Only the straight grain wood was wanted in the mills, and it produced the best lumber. Any wood with curl through it, or any kind of burls, were left in the woods to rot. Turns out Redwood doesn't rot very well.              Later, due to good Forestry practices, these areas were replanted so that one day they would be able to go back and harvest these areas again.              Next week, I will talk about how all of this enabled us to have the amount of Reclaimed Redwood we have today.

Some Redwood History

Sequoia Sempervirens, or Coastal Redwood as we know it, only grows in a 500 mile stretch along the Pacific Coast of North America starting from Monterey County in the south to the very southern tip of Oregon in the north. Usually found in the mountains where incoming moisture off of the ocean is greater, Coastal Redwood grows at an elevation ranging from 100 - 2,500 feet. This native area provides a unique environment with heavy seasonal rains (98 in. average) annually. Cool coastal air and fog drip keep this forest consistently damp year round.

          The Redwood forest in Humboldt County extends in an irregular but compact belt from the Southern to Northern borders.This belt grows parallel to and near the coast, in a strip 108 miles long and averaging about five miles in width.

The manufacturing of lumber in Humboldt County began in 1850. Initially these harvests were confined to pine, spruce, and fir due to the great size and weight of Redwood logs and the primitive facilities and technology of that early date. In 1855 the first cargo of Redwood lumber was sawn and shipped to San Francisco. In 1862, the use of circular saw was implemented. In 1886 the band saw began to replace the circular saw, and eventually all the mills in the county were outfitted with them.

(To be continued)...........

Check back next week. I will talk about the logging camps and logging operations from the 1870's to 1950's.

Meet The Staff - Vic Arvizu

Vic Arvizu Social Media Manager & Sales

Vic has been with the company for almost 15 years. He started off as the Webmaster, and built the original www.Redwoodburl.com site. Later, as the company grew he moved into sales, and is now the Social Media Manager. Vic is usually the guy who answers the phones during the day, and will try and get you the best deals on all of our products.

Updated Interfaces

We are really working into the whole Social Media blitz thing. Seems while I was away, they got by with out me. Lucky for me I created a new position, and the powers that be put me back to work doing what I like to call "Social Media Marketing".

You will soon begin to notice plenty of new promotions, specials and even some give a ways. To get these specials all you have to do is be connected to us. Very soon we will have icons to help you link up to every thing we are doing. We have few Facebook accounts, we are also now on Twitter, Pintrest, Houzz. Soon coming to YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, Remodelista and Gardenista as well.

Get connected where ever you can, we will be offering different deals in different places. We just started on this this week, and I am still planning this all out on paper. Also, feel free to make any comments or suggestion here as well. We always love to hear from all of our happy customers.  Vic

Redwood Burl Is Now On Blog Spot

This is soon to be our new RedwoodBurl.com Blog Site. Please be sure to check back on a regular basis to see what is going on. You will find pictures of some of our most recently cut items here before they even make it on line. Plus tips and ideas for some new projects, as well as some done by our clients as well. Be sure to check out our website at www.redwoodburl.com too.