Laboring on the Edge: The Loma Prieta Mill and the Timber Industry in Nineteenth Century California

Author(s): Marco Meniketti

Year: 2018

Summary

From 1870 until 1920 the Loma Prieta timber mill ranked as one of California’s largest and most productive in terms of board-feet cut. Beginning operations a few years after the gold rush, workers were immigrants from many lands with aspirations for a better life than the one they left behind. The company clear-cut through ancient redwood forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains, providing timber for regional railroads, housing, and building of San Francisco. Following deforestation the region was abandoned and the area is today a century-old second-growth forest. Three seasons of fieldwork at the mill and workers housing reveals much about the lives of the men and women who labored there. Artifacts suggest that, although on the edge of frontier, workers were not isolated from mainstream society. The intersections of such diverse industries as timbering, tanning, sailing, brick manufacture, and lime production are examined.

Cite this Record

Laboring on the Edge: The Loma Prieta Mill and the Timber Industry in Nineteenth Century California. Marco Meniketti. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2018 ( tDAR id: 441565)

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Keywords

Spatial Coverage

min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 1050