Westwood High School - Chipmunk Yearbook (Westwood, CA)

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WESTWOOD PAGE FIFTEEN Westwood Young children lore lo build with block»: the build barns. houses. bridges, engines; older chil- dren like to build sharks, robber rot rout» and torts: still older children love to build real houses, bridge», engines and towns. Plans for the to vn of Westwood wore begun years ago when .Mr. Thotnus Harlow Wulker. head of the Red River Lumber com puny, after invest!- sating all timber prospects in the 1‘nlted States, decided that California offered the most attrac- tive business proposition. It is healthfully lo- t iled, and could be well adapted lo the policy of marketing Minnesota lumber together with pur- chasing timber In California. To this end a mill was built and operated at Akeley. Minnesota, and the resulting proceeds were invented In timber lands in Northern California. , furnished the material for a boarding house, a small store and a few single cottages, all at which were east of Robber Creek. In July. 191.1. .Mr. Fletcher Walker’s house and one stable wen- built on the west side of the creek, and later the' stepping atones were supplanted by a bridge. Hy this time the railroud had reached Susanville and 1 provisions were brought front there by eight horse teams. When the silvery bells on the: leaders would be heard, everyone wondered what there would he to eut the next day. There was a severe t.nowfal! during the win- ter of 1911-11 and the Southern Pacific workel against heavy odds. At one time a snow plow drawn by thirty-two mules was sent out in an endeavor to clear the right of tvuy. in Febru- ary. 1914 the steel was spiked to the tios Into Westwood and it was n thankful group which hold In the Opera House, and later In the Kin- drgarten Hall. The first school was erected in eleven days and had two teachers and twenty-seven pupils. In September. 1913. the small mill burned and the present mill began its activities, growing to its present slxe of four double cut band mill» and ivu horizontal bund resaws. Operated with the r ill is a log pond 200 by 1500 feet for winter sawing, and a storage pond with a capacity of twiniy million feet of logs; four hundred feet of chain for sorting the green lumber: nineteor power lumber stackers to prepare packages of lumber for the locomotive crane yarding and dry kiln loads. The lumber yard has a capacity of one hundred million feet of lumber and the dry shed. 300x400x33 feel has a capacity of ten mil- lion fed. The battery of dry kilns, twenty-four In 1912 an agreement was made with the Southern Pacific Railroad to extend their line from Fernley to the site of Westwood and active operations f-»r the construction of the town were begun m Jul . The first carload of tna -hiiiery for the new plant was shipped in September from .Minneapolis to Keddie on the Western Paclfit Railroad, then hauled forty-five miles througi Feather River. Indian Creek and Wolf Creek canyons to Westwood. The number of stages using this narrow road, tmide hauling dangerous and slow, so sueeedlng ears of machinery wore sent to Doyle in Honey Lake Valley. This neces- sitated a haul of seventy miles over Fredonh Pass, which Is 5700 feet high, tint less danger- ous than the Keddie route. Eight days were necessary for the teams to make the round trip. In the fall of 1912 a portable mill was hullt, and timber wjs cut lo erect a one-band mill which In turn cut the necessary material for the con- struction of the large mill. This small mill also watched the lust spikes driven. The lumber yard then bousled ten million feet of lumber, and three hundred men were on the pay roll. Late in 1913 the store was begun and some rooming houses anil dwellings were built on the present townsitc. In October and Novem- ber. 1913. Mr. Green and family anu Dr. Davis and his family arrived, so Westwood was cared for spiritually and physically. The first hospital was a three-room house on Cedar street and Dr. Davis’ office was where the stacker now stands. The neighbors did the cooking for the hospital until the adjoining wood-shed was annexed and made Into a kitchen. in April. 1914. the first part of the present hospital was hullt. presided over by Dr. Davis, two nurses and a cook. Our opera house was finished Just In time for the Christmas celebration and was lavishly dec- orated for the occasion.. Tho only drawback was tha.t the drop curtain was delayed In a snow- drift. Church and Sunday School services were In number, have a dally capacity of 4So million feet of lumber. The three dry lumber down stackers with sorting chains have a daily capacity of seven hundred thousand feet. The power plant is equipped with boilers of forty-four hundred horsepower, turbine gene- rators of three thousand kilowatt rating, lath mill and hog house. with three sixty-inch hogs. The planing mill has four double surfacers. five matchers, six rip saws, three band resaws, and a twin band ripping department with three twin- band saws, and sorting chains with a daily ca- pacity of two hundred thousand feet. The box factory has twenty cross-cut saws, six twin-band resaws, five band rip saws, one hori- zontal band resaw, two surfacers. ten sash and door cut-off saws, and two printing presses for box shooks. The efficient manufacturing of tin- lumber In the box factory developed a shortage of fuel, so a hydro-eleetric plant was Installed on