Photos: Old sawmills of Sonoma County

Working sawmills in western Sonoma County during the late 19th century and 20th century were not quiet places.

The mill whistle and steam donkey engines made shrill noises. Workers yelled “Timber!” There was the scraping metal sound as saw blades sharpened. Sawdust flew as tree trunks cut into lumber. Horses neighed and oxen strained as they hauled logs, and wagon tires creaked over gravel roads.

The bustling sounds of old sawmills are from a bygone era when commercial logging boomed in Sonoma County, beginning in 1836 with the construction of Cooper’s Sawmill on Rancho El Molino.

Cooper’s Sawmill was “California's first known power-operated commercial sawmill,” according to the California State Parks Office of Historic Preservation. The mill was located on Mark West Creek and destroyed in a flood during the winter of 1840-41.

Some old loggers have shared their personal accounts of working around the Redwood Empire. Wade Sturgeon, who started Sturgeon’s Mill in 1914, was known to have kept diaries of his life, along with his son, the late Ralph Sturgeon.

In a 1988 interview with the Sonoma Historian, the official publication of the Sonoma County Historical Society, Ralph Sturgeon recalled growing up and working at his father’s sawmill in Occidental. The hungry crew would gather for dinner after work and share forest tales.

“Most of the fellows were young, different nationalities and different backgrounds. They were wonderful crews and the finest men you’d ever want to meet. I look at some of these old pictures of different logging crews and I often wonder how many of these fellows made it out of the woods,” Sturgeon told the Sonoma Historian.

Sturgeon’s Mill was restored in recent years and is now a museum that gives live steam-powered logging demonstrations to the public.

See the gallery above for photos of old sawmills in Sonoma County.