Early Mountain Sawmill
In 1935, County Surveyor Harold L. Way and George Beattie retraced the upper and steeper portions of the old Mormon Road to determine percentages of grade. From Crestline down to where the Mormon Road intersects the “high-gear road,” they reported the following grades on selected stretches; for 200 feet –24%; 50 feet –25%; 100 feet –41%; 175 feet –29%; 60 feet –22%; 40 feet –30%; and 300 feet –39%. When we consider that today’s engineers try to keep all mountain roads under a 6% grade, we can well marvel that the Mormons, with their crude oxen teams and wagons, were ever able to haul heavy sawmill equipment up and huge loads of lumber down these steep grades. They used huge brakes but they also but they also locked their wheels, placed a shoe under the wheel to prevent wear and tear, and for added safety dragged a log behind the wagon. Old timers still recall “Drag Camp” at the foot of the grade, where drivers used to cut loose their dragging logs. The old specially built lumber wagons would often haul four thousand feet of lumber in one load on their trips down that precipitous grade.
The Mormon Road gave access to Seeley and Houston Flat (Lake Gregory) areas, which at the time had one of the finest forests in the San Bernardino Mountains. The Seeley Sawmill, erected in 1853, was the first mill of any importance to operate on the mountain crest. It was owned by the Seeley brothers, David and Wellington, and was located at the lower end of the flat, where it was run by waterpower. The water was taken from the creek about where Camp Seeley now stands and was carried by flume to a log-cabin type “penstock.” There was a gate at the bottom where water was released on to an undershot wheel ten feet in diameter that operated a single saw of the vertical type known as a “muley saw.” The capacity of this mill was about twenty-five hundred feet of lumber per day as compared with a sixty-thousand-board-foot capacity in the Brooking’s Mills of half a century later. The Seeley Mill was in operation every summer until 1862, when it was washed away by a big storm.
Camp Seeley
The first steam mill in the San Bernardino Mountains was built at Houston Flat in 1853 by Charles Crisman and was owned at times by Jefferson Hunt, John M. James, Caley and Company, and F. L. Talmadge. It was moved in 1865 to Blue Jay Camp, and later to Pacific Electric Camp, and then onto the meadow that is now covered by Lake Arrowhead. Most of this early timber was used in the San Bernardino area, but later it was hauled into Los Angeles, where top-grade sugar pine sold for $80.00 per thousand feet, delivered.
By 1857 the old Mormon Road into the mountains had become a very busy thoroughfare, but this was also the year in which Brigham Young called all the Faithful who were scattered in various colonies to return to Salt Lake City. Utah was still a territory and Young was having so much difficulty with the Federal authorities that for a time it looked as though there might be an out-and-out clash. Many of the San Bernardino colonists did not agree with Young’s policies, especially polygamy, and a few refused to obey his call. The majority obeyed and sold they had worked so hard to accumulate, at a ruinous sacrifice. Instances are related where an improved ranch was traded for a camping outfit, and in one case a well-located four-room furnished house sold for $40.00.
Mountain Sawmill Preparing Lumber
In paying tribute to the Mormons, we not only credit them with opening the roads into the mountains but also honor them for many more accomplishments. In six short years they had built up a substantial town, with schools, council house, several complete stores, a flour mill, three sawmills, irrigation systems, good roads, and had a large share of thirty-six thousand acres under cultivation. It was years before San Bernardino recovered from the loss of so many of her cooperative and hard-working citizens.
In the years that followed, new toll roads were built into the mountains to supplement the old Mormon Road. The Devil’s Canyon Road, The Daley Road, and the City Creek Road were all destined to play an important part in the development of the area. As the timber on the lower flats was cut off, new roads were built and the mills were moved to higher ground. In 1873 there were at least four sawmills in the area, producing three million feet of lumber and five hundred thousand shingles per year. In 1882 the big mill owners along the mountains were William La Praix, Tyler Brothers, E. Sommers, Hudson and Taylor, and Frank Talmadge. The whole timbered area from Crestline through Big Bear was destined to come under the woodman’s ax and hand-cross-cut saws. A lumberman today would cringe at the unnecessary destructiveness of those early-day operations; many of the areas looked completely bald when the sawmills moved on to better timber. One of the marvels of nature is evidenced by the way in which these destroyed forests have replaced themselves in the past sixty years.
