Castella Lumber and Timber Industry

 The following Lumber Companies and Sawmills operated in the Castella area.

 

Red Cross Saw Mill, Mott, Castella on Soda Creek, McCloud and Bartle

W.H. Wheeler and Eli Knight partnership, Castella.

M.A. Burns Lumber Company, Castella.

Solinsky Mill, Castella

Castle Crag Lumber Company.

Castella Lumber Company, Castella.

Crahane & Yoder (Dunsmuir Lumber Company.

Highland Lake Lumber Company. Castella.

Castle Lake Lumber Company, Castella.

 Shasta Box Company, Castella. 

  

 

The earliest known lumber business Castella area dates back to 1880's when a man named Anderson operated a mill in the Crag View area south of Dunsmuir, California.  

One of the largest lumber mill operations was the Red Cross Lumber Company, which operated three mills, with the first one-built 1888 at the town of Mott north of Dunsmuir. The owners of the Red Cross SawMill were a group of men from Wisconsin. Who filed articles of incorporation on September 8, 1892. The directors of the corporation were D. E. Miles and L.E. Brewser of Chippewa, Wisconsin, Henry Tatum and J, J, Browen from Wisconsin S.P Smiley and A.M Willis. E.A. Lancaster of Chicago, Ill. Capital stock investment was $ 150.000.00.  

W.H. Wheeler who was superintendent of the Red Cross Saw Mill and moved his crew east of McCloud to Bartle where they built a big new mill and laid out a town site naming it Wheeler City.  They called the mill Red Cross Saw Mill #2.  Their plans were to build a narrow gauge railroad to connect their new mill with the old one at Mott. 

   

Before the Red Cross Mill could really get into full production in Bartle after its completion in late 1890 it was shut down by a workers' strike. Then in 1891 a series of forest fires destroyed much of the timber in the upper Sacramento Canyon and several mills in the Mott area were forced to close. One of those was the Red Cross Mill. The crew was sent over to run the mill at Bartle. 

 

Again the owners of the mill looked to expand their operations, and settled on Soda Creek as the new site. After selecting Soda Creek as the new location for their third mill, Red Cross decided to build its proposed narrow gauge railroad up that drainage to McCloud and Bartle rather than the previously proposed route from Mott to Battle. In late 1891 they let a contract to clear the potential railroad route from the newly built McCloud River Railroad.  

  Work began on the new mill in 1891 Soda Creek, located approximately two miles upstream from the confluence of Soda Creek and the Sacramento River. The Red Cross Saw Mill completed had the capability of handling the largest trees cut and could saw timbers up to sixty long. The construction of a building to house the saw mill was two stories high and 200 feet forty feet wide, capable of cutting 100,000 board fee day.  

 The Southern Pacific Railroad under contract with the Red Cross Saw  Mill and built the narrow gauge railroad east side of Soda Creek to the new mill. The line, officially two and one-tenth mile long, was completed as far as the mill site in 1892 and the plan was that once the timber around the mill was cut the line would be extended.

 Several mill residences were built eventually quite a settlement sprung up around the mill which, by late 1893, employed about 250 men. A fellow named A. Levy opened a camp store; George Muck; an adjoining land ower, built a saloon on his place. It must have been a pretty wild place on Saturday nights, since the Dunsmuir News in 1893 carried stories involving the numerous Chinese who lived in the area fighting among themselves at Muck's place.  

 In 1893 stockholders D. E. Miles and became impatient with the progress of the railroad to McCloud, so they fired Henry Wheeler, and David E. Miles took over the operation himself. The move may have led to the destruction of the Red Cross Lumber Company.  Talk con­tinued of finishing the railroad and expand­ing the operation, but it never happened. However after Miles took over he bought not only a locomotive and a string of cars to run on what there was of the narrow gauge line, but also a fancy hand car to run back and forth from the main line to his luxurious new house which he built near the mill.  

At the same time the stockholders began to disagree on just how soon the plans for expanding their operation should be carried out, and though the mill continued to run on a sporadic basis in 1892, in 1895 it shut down. It operated a couple of times after 1895, but never for a sustained period. In 1896 a fire destroyed much of the Soda Creek mill and in that same year the mill at Bartle also closed down for the last time.  

RED CROSS SAW MILL 1900

 After being in serious money troubles for over six years, the Red Cross Lumber Com­pany announced in 1900 it was bankrupt. In the article explaining the bankruptcy, the reporter stated the company had borrowed money on their mills to buy timber property and this practice had led to their downfall. The article went on to say the property consisted of mills at Soda Creek and Mott, two miles of railroad and 5,000 acres of timber. 

Few signs of the old Red Cross mill exist at Soda Creek today, although the house built by D. E. Miles still stands as a private residence, the narrow gauge railroad is gone and the right-of-way for the tracks is essentially used  D. E. Miles of the Red Cross Lumber Company built himself a fancy house at the Soda Creek mill, 1893 by the county road up Soda Creek, although in a couple of places the old grade can still be seen. 

The house D.E. Miles built in 1893 still stands on Soda Creek and six generations now have past since D.E. Miles operated the Red Cross Saw Mill on Soda Creek.  

D. E MILES SODA CREEK 1893

The descendent of David Miles still live and cut lumber on the property

 David E. Miles,

Son: James Palmer Miles, (Lawyer & Author) Wife: Mildred Stevens.

Daughter: Mary Alice Miles: 1920-1996.

First Marriage: Errol Pendleton

Second Marriage: John L. Nani 1917-1992 

Son: David E. Nani: 1940 Wife: Sharon Pukis 1947

Daughter: Deborah Ann Nani               Husband: John Seehan

Daughter: Bailey Jayne Sheehan:       Son: Kennedy Leigh Sheehan

 Son: Kenneth David Nani 1969    Wife: Sarah Boyd 1972-1994

                                                Daughter Candace Rose Nani

                                                Son: Andrew Martin Nani

 

Kenneth Nani currently living on the Soda Creek property and milling the same property.

When Red Cross Lumber Company fired Henry W. Wheeler in 1893, his son-in-law Harvey Wickes and Eli Knight also quit. The three of them bought timber on the Castle Creek drainage and built a mill on the south side of the creek approximately one half mile west of its mouth. Most of their timber came from the Flume Ridge area, which they moved off the ridge by a series of dry log chutes.  Later they used steam donkeys.   The Wheeler mill cut some lumber, but mostly they cut railroad ties and mining timbers. 

 

Once the materials were milled they were floated to Castella in a flume, then loaded onto railroad cars at the Castella siding and shipped out. Like other mills, the Wheeler mill was a seasonal operation and employed about thirty-five men depending on the weather and the lumber market. 

 

Henry Wheeler became ill in 1896 and died. After Wheeler's death the mill continued to operate under the direction of Harvey O. Wickes.  Mrs. Wheeler sold her interest in 1899 to James Whalen who hired Adam Gillespie of Keswick to take charge of the mill's operation. Just how long the mill operated after Whalen bought it is uncertain, since newspaper articles indicate James Whalen was in partnership with Mr. Cox in a saloon in Castella in 1903 (the Depot Saloon) and at the same time Adam Gillespie was the owner of the Castella Cash Store. Eli Knight built a sawmill of his own at the south end of Sweetbriar on the West Side of the river, which was to operate off and on until he sold to Sam Leavitt in 1906.  

 Several small mills also operated in the area during the late 1800's, one being the Sweetbriar Lumber Company, which was active until about 1901.  In 1895 W. R. Conant and C. 0. Clarke operated a saw at Conant's Spur.  In 1898 Conant purchased the water wheel and the appliances associated with it from the Red Cross Lumber Company for his planing mill. 1904 John Vance and W. J. Tuckwell started the Flume Creek mill just south of Castella, but only a year later it dismantled and the machinery sent to Up in Siskiyou County.  

 The Castle Lake Lumber Company had a mill on Castle Creek in 1906 and in 1910 they purchased fourteen million feet standing timber in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest for $31,000.  Eventually the property was purchased by the Thomas Burns Lumber Company, which built approximately thirty miles of narrow gauge track the Castle Creek drainage to the creek's headwaters. Besides the sawmill the Burns Company owned a planning mill and a box factory, located downhill and south of mill. The mill itself was near the present entrance to Castle Crags State Park. Logs were brought to the mill, cut into lumber and then allowed to coast on rail cars to planning mill. 

 

After the lumber was run through the planing mill it was again placed on cars and coasted to the Castella siding where it was shipped to market on the main line. The box factory was near the present day auto bridge crossing just east of Spatafora's store north of Castella. In 1917 there was a saloon and boarding house located just west of where Sam's store stands today. The saloon, known as the Jungle Inn owned by Ambrose Volonte, was the scene of an argument and subsequent murder recalled in vivid detail by old time resident of Castella.  

 In 1920 the old Burns mill and the Castle Crags Lumber Company which, three years late acquired the railroad including two locomotives (a Shay and a Climax), cars, rails and ties from the Lamoine mill on Slate Creek purchased all of property.   The newly acquired railroad equipment was used to replace the old Burns line up Castle Creek. From 1926 until 1935 the mill operated only sporadically. 

 

In 1935 Frank Solinsky, who had been acting as manager, announced negotiations for pur­chasing the mill and property and that the mill would be restarted. But that same year the company sold approximately 2,400 acres of their holdings to H. M. Manuel, and the mill never opened.  The next year those parcels of land became part of the new Castle Crags State Park. Later the rest of their holdings were sold and the company disappeared.

Charles Davis, who sold out in 1940 to Yoder and Crahane, who also operated a mill at Hazel Creek built the last big mill operation in the Castella area near the old box factory.  In 1942 they sold both mills, with the Castella mill going to Ed Lessard, who shut it down and dismantled it, building a new mill a quarter mile south on the East Side of the river which he called the New Castle Crags Lumber Company. The new mill began operations in February 1943, but was sold again in 1944 the name changed to Castle Creek Lumber Company. By 1948 they had over 13,000 acres in tree farms, their holdings accounting for the largest such reserves in the area. 

 

The mill and timber was sold again in 1953 to the Ralph L. Smith Lumber Company, and the new owners continued to operate the mill without any major changes except for routine repairs and improvements until October of 1960 when the company was sold to the newly formed Kimberly Clark Lumber Company. In December of 1960 the mill closed and has never reopened. Today the Roseburg Lumber Company of Oregon, which continues to log the area around Castella on a regular basis, owns the Kimberly Clark holdings, but there are no mills operating any longer.