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Mendocino
Redwood Company (MRC) owns approximately 228,000 acres
of timberland in Mendocino County. As the adjacent map
shows, our land is not one contiguous block but an archipelago
of forest islands surrounded by state parks, ranchers,
private land owners, and state highways. The largest
of our area forests is Rockport at 39,201 ac; the smallest,
Ukiah at 5681 ac.
We purchased
this property, zoned for timber production, as a single
unit from L-P Redwood, LLC in 1998. Since the late 19th
century, this land has had a succession of small and
large land owners, who, for the most part, have been
in the timber business.
Back to the
Beginning
History, of course,
is more than a recounting of recorded deeds—be they deeds of
property or deeds of heroism and infamy. The history of any
land reaches back to a time when no one “owned” the land and
no written records were kept. Long before there was a United
States of America or a State of California, there were
indigenous people living on what we call MRC
timberland.
Anthropologists
generally agree that there were people in many parts of
present-day California about 15,000 years ago. These early
people likely came from Asia over the Bering Strait. Frozen
Pleistocene seas or low sea levels may have created a bridge
from Siberia to the American continent. The Pacific coastline
that the ancient people settled along is now submerged under
the sea. Of these people, we can know very little. What we can
surmise is based on fluted points, artifacts, and bones
unearthed at scattered archaeological sites. According to
estimates, there were 64-80 indigenous languages at the time
Europeans first made contact with California. Yukian, one of
these family of languages, is identified with Mendocino, Lake,
and Napa counties. Our historical picture, however, must
remain a fuzzy one. "Inevitably, the story of ancient
California is a fractured portrait," writes Brian Fagan, "much
of it created by generations of mindless archaeology,
widespread destruction, a confusing, and often effectively
inaccessible literature, and poor preservation" (Fagan,
14).
As for the land
itself, we must rely on geologists to read its ancient history
in the rocks and fossils. We do know that the land of these
ancient people was much colder and wetter, with thick redwood
and pine forests extending further south than our present day
forests (Fagan, 22).
Nueva
España (New Spain)
The written history of MRC
land does not exist apart from the history of California.
That early recorded history, though sketchy, begins
in the mid-16th century—the Age of the Renaissance and
the Great Explorers. Spain was the world superpower,
enjoying a siglo de oro, a century of gold.
An expedition of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo (1542), under
the command of Bartolome Ferrelo, came relatively close
to our slice of northern California—all the way
to Cape Mendocino. Months earlier, Cabrillo had sailed
into San Diego Bay and claimed Alta (upper) California
for Spain. Baja (lower) California had already been
discovered around 1533 by Fortun Ximenez de Bertadoña,
a mutinous Spanish sailor, although it was Hernan Cortes,
his expedition commander, who officially claimed it
for Spain in 1535.
For the next 200 years, Spain
was content to let California be just a spot on a geographer's
map. As other European nations began showing interest in the
Pacific, Spain decided to protect its claim by building
military forts (presidios), mission churches, and ranchos
along the California coast. In 1769 a Franciscan priest,
Junipero Serra, established the first mission at San Diego.
From that date to 1821, all of present-day California was a
colonial province of Nueva España. With its capital in Mexico
City, the territory of New Spain included what is now Mexico,
most of Central America, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado,
Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
Mexican
Empire and Manifest Destiny
In 1821, Mexico gained its
independence from Spain and California became Mexican
territory. After many bloody battles, including one
immortalized by Hollywood—The Alamo—Texas, in turn, declared
its independence from Mexico in 1836. Mexico, however, never
recognized the Republic of Texas and still claimed the Nueces
River, north of the Rio Grande, as the border between Texas
and Mexico. This contention over river boundaries in the
southwest would soon lead tragically to war.
Meanwhile, the United States
continued to grow on the east coast and the central
plains—growing in population, in economic wealth, and in
political aspirations. Manifest Destiny became a catchword of
U.S. politicians and writers in the 1840s. Used to explain and
justify U.S. continental expansion, the words implied mission
and purpose to some, aggression and imperialism to others.
Against this backdrop, the U.S. Congress in 1845 voted to
annex the Republic of Texas. That same year, President James
Polk sent a diplomat to Mexico City to purchase the Mexican
territories of California and New Mexico. Mexico refused the
offer. Later, provoked by U.S. troops, the Mexican cavalry
fired on a U.S. patrol that was south of the Nueces River—an
area Mexico considered its territory. In a message to Congress
on May 11, 1846, Polk said that Mexico had "invaded our
territory and shed American blood." Congress quickly approved
a declaration of war. One of the bitter dissenters to that
declaration was Abraham Lincoln, a first-time representative
in the U.S. Congress. Ulysses S. Grant, a West Point graduate
who was destined to command Lincoln's army in the Civil War
and become president four years after Lincoln's death, got his
first taste of battle in the Mexican-American War. Many years
later in his memoirs, Grant reflected that this war was "one
of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger nation against a
weaker nation" (Grant, 41). One of Grant's recent biographers,
Jean Edward Smith, put the casualties of this terrible war in
perspective. "Of the 78,718 men who served during the
conflict," Smith writes, "13,283 perished: a casualty ratio
slightly higher than Union losses in the Civil War, seven
times greater that that of World War II, and twenty-four times
that of Vietnam" (Smith, 36). The Mexican-American War finally
ended with the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo on February 2,
1848. Under provisions of the treaty, Mexico received
$15,000,000 and the United States became the new owner of
California as well as all the other Mexican territories within
what is now the continental USA.
The Gold
Rush
As the war with Mexico was
ending, the American Dream was beginning—rising up from the
American River (Rio de los Americanos) near Coloma,
California. "I reached my hand down and picked it up" said
James Marshall. "It made my heart thump, for I was certain it
was gold" (Holliday, 33). Marshall's discovery at Sutter's
Mill on January 24, 1848, would set a lot of American hearts
thumping. For many people, the simple life on the farm or in
the hometown would no longer be enough. Americans had new
dreams—to get rich quick! California was about to experience
its first of many "gold diggers."
By 1850 California became a
state and the Gold Rush was in full swing. Estimates are that
at the time of Marshall's discovery, the state's non-Indian
population was about 14,000. At the start of 1850, it was
nearly 100,000. By 1852, the number more than doubled to
250,000. Of course, the other side of that story is the tragic
loss of Native American population. Sherburne F.Cook, well
known for his anthropological research on aboriginal
populations in both California and Mesoamerica, paints a grim
picture: "The most devastating wave of foreign impacts was
swept into California by the Gold Rush and attendant influx of
Euro-American populations. During the single decade of A.D.
1845-1855, the Indian population of California was reduced
from approximately 150,000 to 50,000; by A.D. 1900, the number
had fallen to 20,000—less than 7% of the estimated preconquest
level of 310,000" (Moratto, 573). According to Cook, "this
desolation was accomplished by a ruthless flood of miners and
farmers who annihilated the natives without mercy or
compensation" (Moratto, 573). Among the direct causes of death
were bullets, disease, exposure, and starvation. However, Cook
adds that the indirect causes were a greed for gold, a hatred
of Indians, and a pervasive lawlessness.
Building
Dreams with Redwood Timber
Gold was not the only attraction
for some California entrepreneurs. Since it seemed, at times,
as if the whole world was beating a path to California,
particularly San Francisco, clearly there was a need for new
housing and stores. For building materials, one only had to
look around. Many hills surrounding San Francisco were covered
with coast redwoods. Today Muir Woods preserves the last 295
acres of those old growth trees in the San Francisco Bay Area.
As the forests around the Bay Area were disappearing, an
unforeseen accident off the coast of Mendocino—the shipwreck
of the Baltimore Clipper, the Frolic—would open up new
resources in the forests of northern California and create a
logging industry in what is now Mendocino County. First,
though, the early loggers and homesteaders had to claim the
land.
Pioneers
and Wilderness
As soon as California became
part of the United States, its land became part of the public
domain. A Board of Commissioners was established to sort out
earlier land grants (the ranchos and pueblos) from the Spanish
and Mexican governments, as well as Indian claims, and
determine which would be recognized by the U.S. Government as
private lands. Almost another quarter century would pass
before Americans grew nostalgic about the passing of the
"'wilderness" and set aside public lands not just for
townships and public schools but for national parks and
national forests. President Abraham Lincoln, on June 30, 1864,
signed a bill giving Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of
Giant Sequoias to the State of California as a public trust.
For the first time in history, a federal government protected
"wilderness." A few years later, Lincoln's triumphant general,
now President Ulysses Grant, created the world's first
national park, Yellowstone, on March 1, 1872—2.2 million acres
for the people. "To the laborer in the sweat of his
labor, the raw stuff on his anvil is an adversary to be
conquered," Aldo Leopold wrote of the wilderness and the
pioneer. "But to the laborer in repose, able for a moment to
cast a philosophical eye on his world, that same raw stuff is
something to be loved and cherished, because it gives
definition and meaning to his life" (Leopold, 188).
Claiming a
Piece of the American Pie
Laws pertaining to the dispersal
of public land date back to the earliest days of the thirteen
colonies. when, in 1775, the Continental Congress promised
land to Revolutionary War veterans in lieu of pensions. In the
ensuing years, Congress enacted numerous Public Land Laws. The
Land Ordinance of 1785, for example, established a survey
system that must precede any sale of public land. In 1812,
Congress created the General Land Office (GLO) under the
jurisdiction of the Treasury Department. The GLO had the huge
task of keeping on file all land records for the United
States. Plat maps from the GLO show that all MRC land was
surveyed between 1856-1902, with the earliest surveys in the
Big River and Navarro blocks.
One of the most important pieces
of legislation for the American West, including those laying
claim to lands in Mendocino County, was the Homestead Act of
1862. Signed into law by Abraham Lincoln, it allowed anyone
who was a U.S. citizen, at least 21 years old, and head of a
household (including single women and former slaves) to stake
a claim on 160 acres at $1.25 per acre. Even greater impact
for the lands that now comprise the MRC forests was the Timber
and Stone Act of 1878. Through this Act, the United States
sold timberland in California and other western states in
160-acre plots at $2.50 per acre. Any land that was considered
"unfit for farming" could be sold for logging and
mining—timber and stone. Not surprisingly, some land
speculators had great expanses of land classified as "unfit'
so that they could amass large tracts of timberland.
Major
Players in the Mendocino Timber Industry
The first sawmill in Mendocino
County was the California Lumber Manufacturing Company,
organized in 1852 by Henry Meiggs and operated by Jerome Ford
and E.C. Williams. After the financial failure of that
company, it became the Mendocino Mill Company in 1855 and the
Mendocino Lumber Company in 1872, both of these companies
under the continual leadership of Jerome Ford and E.C.
Williams. As the decades progressed other companies began to
emerge and consolidate, including the W. R. Miller sawmill in
Rockport (1877-1886), Caspar Lumber Company (1880-1955),
Albion Lumber Company (1891-1928), Fort Bragg Lumber Company
(1885-1892), L. E. White Lumber Company (1884-1916), Goodyear
Redwood Lumber Company (1916-1930), Union Lumber Company
(1893-1968), The Mendocino Lumber Company (1906-1945),
Rockport Redwood Company (1938-1957), Masonite Corporation
(1950-1986), and Boise-Cascade Corporation (1968-1972). By
1986, two major players were left standing: Georgia-Pacific
(1968-1999) and Louisiana-Pacific (1973-1998). Both continued
their acquisition of small private tracts of clear-cut and
new-growth lands. Georgia-Pacific was finally succeeded by
Hawthorne Timber Company (1999) and Louisiana-Pacific by MRC
(1998).
Author:
DMS
Secondary
Sources
Fagan, Brian. Before California:
An Archaeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants. Walnut
Creek, CA: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers,
2003.
Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters.
New York: The Library of America, 1990.
Holliday, J.S. The World Rushed
In. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981.
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County
Almanac. Oxford University Press, 1949.
MCHS. The Mills of Mendocino
County. Mendocino County Historical Society, 1996.
Moratto, Michael J. California
Archaeology. Orlando, Florida: Academic Press,
1984.
Robinson, William W.. Land in
California: The Story of Mission Lands, Ranchos, Squatters,
Mining Claims, Railroad Grants, Land Scrip, and Homesteads.
Berkeley: University of California, 1979.
Smith, Jean
Edward. Grant. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001.
Sturtevant, William C.,
General Editor. Handbook of North American Indians: California
(Vol. 8). Robert F. Heizer, volume editor. . Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution, 1978.
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