1
00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:05,000
Speaker 1: Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views

2
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:08,760
Speaker 1: and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host.

3
00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:10,119
Speaker 2: Producers or parent company.

4
00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:13,200
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is it fine?

5
00:00:15,120 --> 00:00:18,320
Speaker 3: This is a rip Current bonus episode. You don't have

6
00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:21,159
Speaker 3: to listen to follow the Rip Current storyline, but it

7
00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:30,760
Speaker 3: provides more information, context, and analysis to enhance the main podcast. Enjoy.

8
00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:34,680
Speaker 2: Michael Waters, the journalist who wrote a story for New

9
00:00:34,760 --> 00:00:39,080
Speaker 2: Yorker Magazine about Scotia, suggested that I talk with James

10
00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:43,440
Speaker 2: Michael Buckley, an architectural historian and the author of City

11
00:00:43,479 --> 00:00:47,440
Speaker 2: of Wood, San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood

12
00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:51,559
Speaker 2: Lumber Industry. I spoke with him in July and it

13
00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:55,480
Speaker 2: ended up being a fascinating discussion and another lens on

14
00:00:55,520 --> 00:01:00,920
Speaker 2: the logging of redwoods, both historically and now Here is

15
00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:01,800
Speaker 2: that conversation.

16
00:01:05,640 --> 00:01:09,640
Speaker 1: So I'm an architectural historian, and I'm particularly interested in

17
00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:13,280
Speaker 1: the link between the built environment, the architecture, and the

18
00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:19,280
Speaker 1: natural environment. And in particular I'm interested in the everyday world,

19
00:01:19,640 --> 00:01:24,560
Speaker 1: what we call the vernacular, the ordinary buildings that average

20
00:01:24,600 --> 00:01:27,520
Speaker 1: people occupy, because I think that gives us a better

21
00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:31,039
Speaker 1: sense of what's going on throughout society. Of course, you

22
00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:34,280
Speaker 1: know Franklodride's great. I love looking at famous architects, but

23
00:01:34,319 --> 00:01:37,080
Speaker 1: I think we can learn other things from looking at

24
00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:40,880
Speaker 1: the average, ordinary structure we wouldn't otherwise think about. And

25
00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:44,200
Speaker 1: so I like to follow people in their ordinary lives

26
00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:46,360
Speaker 1: and get a better sense of what's been going on.

27
00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:49,080
Speaker 1: So it's been a great project in the redwood lumber

28
00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:51,520
Speaker 1: industry to kind of see what workers were doing, as

29
00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:54,720
Speaker 1: well as owners and other people involved in the industry.

30
00:01:55,560 --> 00:01:56,680
Speaker 2: Have you been up to Scotia.

31
00:01:57,720 --> 00:02:01,080
Speaker 1: Oh? Yes, this project started in Scotia. I was about

32
00:02:01,120 --> 00:02:04,640
Speaker 1: to start my PhD program at Berkeley. I thought I'll

33
00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:06,240
Speaker 1: just take a little trip off the coach a little

34
00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:09,080
Speaker 1: bit up that way, and I landed in Scotia, and

35
00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:12,280
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, this is really interesting. People must have

36
00:02:12,320 --> 00:02:15,720
Speaker 1: written a lot about this. So back I realized people

37
00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:19,040
Speaker 1: haven't really written about it in an academic way, and

38
00:02:19,120 --> 00:02:21,400
Speaker 1: so I just got interested in why did this thing

39
00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:24,360
Speaker 1: occur at this point in time? And the more I

40
00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:26,040
Speaker 1: looked at it, the more I realize there is a

41
00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:29,360
Speaker 1: connection between what goes on in the forest and what

42
00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:31,639
Speaker 1: goes on in the city. And that's where I got

43
00:02:31,639 --> 00:02:34,799
Speaker 1: this idea of the City of Wood, because it's not

44
00:02:34,960 --> 00:02:37,280
Speaker 1: just what goes on in the forest, it's the demand

45
00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:41,400
Speaker 1: that's created in the city, but also the people who

46
00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:43,760
Speaker 1: run the industry. Many of them are in San Francisco,

47
00:02:43,919 --> 00:02:47,360
Speaker 1: So there's this dynamic between the two poles. The City

48
00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:50,720
Speaker 1: of Wood includes, yes, the city of San Francisco, but

49
00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:54,560
Speaker 1: also the forest where the material is harvested and where

50
00:02:54,560 --> 00:02:56,000
Speaker 1: a lot of it the lumber is made.

51
00:02:57,120 --> 00:03:00,000
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, later, I do want to talk to you

52
00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:03,640
Speaker 2: specifically about the thesis of your book. But let's just

53
00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:07,680
Speaker 2: start with the first people of European descent who headed

54
00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:13,160
Speaker 2: out to redwood country and decided that it might be

55
00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:16,200
Speaker 2: a good idea to start cutting one down. What were

56
00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:19,520
Speaker 2: they sort of faced with and what was their thinking

57
00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:22,600
Speaker 2: behind must assume like a monumental task.

58
00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:26,440
Speaker 1: Well, let's start with the people who are already there, the

59
00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:32,040
Speaker 1: native groups Talawa hoop Iraq, who had been living in

60
00:03:32,040 --> 00:03:36,000
Speaker 1: the forest for centuries, and they were using the forest

61
00:03:36,320 --> 00:03:38,800
Speaker 1: in their way. They were living off all the things

62
00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:42,000
Speaker 1: that the ocean and the forest would provide to them,

63
00:03:42,080 --> 00:03:45,760
Speaker 1: and they used redwood trees that had fallen down to

64
00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:50,640
Speaker 1: harvest some lumber that they used to make houses. And

65
00:03:51,320 --> 00:03:55,800
Speaker 1: sweat houses and other products. And so suddenly with the

66
00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:59,640
Speaker 1: gold rush, everyone's coming to California and you get people

67
00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:02,640
Speaker 1: from the East Coast, especially people who had been working

68
00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:06,440
Speaker 1: in the lumber industry, who come across these massive trees,

69
00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:08,800
Speaker 1: and you can only imagine what they must have thought

70
00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:12,240
Speaker 1: when they came here and said, Wow, this is a windfall,

71
00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:14,000
Speaker 1: but I wonder how we're going to get them down

72
00:04:14,200 --> 00:04:17,360
Speaker 1: and transport them. So really there was a lot of

73
00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:20,840
Speaker 1: innovation early on that they had to think about how

74
00:04:20,839 --> 00:04:24,000
Speaker 1: can we get these trees into a position where we

75
00:04:24,080 --> 00:04:26,039
Speaker 1: can cut them into lumper and then how can we

76
00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:29,599
Speaker 1: get them to the market of San Francisco. So you

77
00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:33,680
Speaker 1: had people who many of whom come from May New Hampshire,

78
00:04:33,839 --> 00:04:37,960
Speaker 1: the eastern Maritimes of Canada, who were familiar with the industry,

79
00:04:38,400 --> 00:04:40,520
Speaker 1: and they begin to think about how they could try

80
00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:43,400
Speaker 1: to make money out of this by taking these trees down.

81
00:04:44,600 --> 00:04:47,840
Speaker 2: So it started off sort of I guess corporate. It's

82
00:04:47,839 --> 00:04:50,000
Speaker 2: not quite the word, but it did start off with

83
00:04:50,360 --> 00:04:53,080
Speaker 2: people who are already established in the timber diustry coming

84
00:04:53,320 --> 00:04:56,520
Speaker 2: and sort of trying to adapt to that environment.

85
00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:00,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was not corporate at all. There's really a

86
00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:03,480
Speaker 1: bunch of individuals who were trying to make their way.

87
00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:07,440
Speaker 1: So we have what we usually call the pioneer owners

88
00:05:07,440 --> 00:05:10,840
Speaker 1: of companies, and they're small partnerships of people who have

89
00:05:10,960 --> 00:05:14,160
Speaker 1: some experience in the industry for other places. And they

90
00:05:14,200 --> 00:05:16,800
Speaker 1: acquired some tracks of land and they start taking them

91
00:05:16,839 --> 00:05:20,880
Speaker 1: down and just the process of felling these trees was

92
00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:24,760
Speaker 1: very intricate. So it would take probably a week for

93
00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,480
Speaker 1: two lumberjacks to saw through a tree and bring it

94
00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:32,240
Speaker 1: to the ground, and then the thick bark had to

95
00:05:32,279 --> 00:05:35,440
Speaker 1: be taken off to several more days, and then they

96
00:05:35,480 --> 00:05:38,440
Speaker 1: cut into sections so they could try and transport it

97
00:05:38,480 --> 00:05:41,840
Speaker 1: to the mill. The mills were usually over by the coast,

98
00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:44,640
Speaker 1: because obviously there's no railroad, they have to ship the

99
00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:48,520
Speaker 1: lumber from the trees to San Francisco. So at first

100
00:05:48,680 --> 00:05:52,320
Speaker 1: they're trying to use streams like they did back east

101
00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:56,120
Speaker 1: to float the redwood tree trunks to the mills. That

102
00:05:56,160 --> 00:05:59,039
Speaker 1: didn't work that well. Then they developed a skid road

103
00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:01,760
Speaker 1: that we're familiar with with ox teams or horse teams

104
00:06:01,760 --> 00:06:05,039
Speaker 1: that are dragging the sections of tree trunks to the mills.

105
00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:10,159
Speaker 1: And eventually this fellow, John Dolbeer invents the steam donkey

106
00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:13,840
Speaker 1: the dolbeer donkey around eighteen eighty one, and this really

107
00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:16,920
Speaker 1: changes the shape of the forest because suddenly you can

108
00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:21,520
Speaker 1: use mechanical means to drag these huge pieces of tree

109
00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:25,480
Speaker 1: trunks to places where they can be transported more clearly.

110
00:06:25,960 --> 00:06:28,440
Speaker 1: And in the eighteen eighties you start having rail lines

111
00:06:28,480 --> 00:06:30,480
Speaker 1: go through the forest. So all of this is kind

112
00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:33,159
Speaker 1: of a speed up of production. You're just trying to

113
00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:35,760
Speaker 1: get something down from the tree, get it to San Francisco.

114
00:06:36,279 --> 00:06:39,080
Speaker 1: Then you have all these new technologies that help you

115
00:06:39,480 --> 00:06:43,039
Speaker 1: bring it to the market faster. So we're seeing more

116
00:06:43,080 --> 00:06:46,159
Speaker 1: and more lumber being taken over time.

117
00:06:47,320 --> 00:06:49,919
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about the demand aspect

118
00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:51,440
Speaker 2: at this time.

119
00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:55,960
Speaker 1: Let's talk about why it's so popular. Redwood. As we

120
00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:59,720
Speaker 1: know big big trees, but also they grow for a

121
00:06:59,839 --> 00:07:02,960
Speaker 1: very long time, so each tree has an immertous amount

122
00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:07,279
Speaker 1: of potential product in it, and the trees grow very

123
00:07:07,279 --> 00:07:09,760
Speaker 1: straight for a very long time, so there are no

124
00:07:09,840 --> 00:07:12,200
Speaker 1: knot holes in most of the tree, so that is

125
00:07:12,200 --> 00:07:15,720
Speaker 1: an incredible benefit to someone who wants to use it

126
00:07:15,760 --> 00:07:20,720
Speaker 1: for construction other things. And then the cannons in the

127
00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:26,160
Speaker 1: wood will both repel insects and are somewhat fireproof. So

128
00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:29,920
Speaker 1: this becomes an ideal construction material for people in San

129
00:07:29,960 --> 00:07:33,040
Speaker 1: Francisco and elsewhere in California, saying we got to use

130
00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:35,880
Speaker 1: this Pine's fine, but this is even better for the

131
00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:38,840
Speaker 1: kind of stuff we want to do. So we see

132
00:07:38,880 --> 00:07:41,720
Speaker 1: an increase in the demand for it, and as we

133
00:07:41,760 --> 00:07:45,000
Speaker 1: know San Francisco grows very quickly, there's a huge demand

134
00:07:45,040 --> 00:07:48,360
Speaker 1: for it. There are redwood trees all around the Bay area,

135
00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:50,680
Speaker 1: but those quickly get used up, and so people are

136
00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:54,800
Speaker 1: looking further afield. There are redwood trees down towards Santa Cruz.

137
00:07:54,880 --> 00:07:57,040
Speaker 1: We know Redwood City was a port where a lot

138
00:07:57,080 --> 00:08:00,640
Speaker 1: of that material came through to build San Francisco Oakland,

139
00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:04,720
Speaker 1: but really the focus quickly came up on Mendocino, Humboldt

140
00:08:04,720 --> 00:08:07,520
Speaker 1: County and Del North County as a place is where

141
00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:11,960
Speaker 1: the richest material and the most profit that could be made.

142
00:08:12,320 --> 00:08:16,280
Speaker 2: Just having been there recently, it feels as though in

143
00:08:16,400 --> 00:08:19,880
Speaker 2: order to get the wood out to the ocean or

144
00:08:19,920 --> 00:08:23,000
Speaker 2: to a port, like unless you're right on the coast,

145
00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:25,960
Speaker 2: you've got to go over mountains, or at least that's

146
00:08:25,960 --> 00:08:27,400
Speaker 2: the way I had to do it in my car.

147
00:08:27,920 --> 00:08:31,480
Speaker 2: So is that where the steam donkey like was that

148
00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:32,480
Speaker 2: where that was helpful?

149
00:08:33,800 --> 00:08:38,440
Speaker 1: That was a major technological move forward. Yes, So once

150
00:08:38,520 --> 00:08:41,840
Speaker 1: you could not have to rely on animal power to

151
00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:45,079
Speaker 1: move these you could move a lot more material a

152
00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:48,040
Speaker 1: lot more quickly. If you then had railroads, you could

153
00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:50,080
Speaker 1: bring them to a railroad landing and then they could

154
00:08:50,120 --> 00:08:53,360
Speaker 1: be moved more easily to the coast. So one of

155
00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:55,720
Speaker 1: the things it's important about the industry is that you

156
00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:59,280
Speaker 1: don't have a railroad to Humboldt County until nineteen fourteen.

157
00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:03,160
Speaker 1: Everything is by ship. Everything is getting the material either

158
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:07,199
Speaker 1: to the coast at Mendocino, the ships had to dock

159
00:09:07,320 --> 00:09:10,160
Speaker 1: off the coast and they had those cables that would

160
00:09:10,640 --> 00:09:13,960
Speaker 1: bring the material on board the ship up and Humboldt.

161
00:09:14,559 --> 00:09:17,240
Speaker 1: Humbold Bay was a very important place for ships. Ships

162
00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:20,160
Speaker 1: could come in and it was navigable. So that's where

163
00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:22,319
Speaker 1: a lot of the material were to be shipped off

164
00:09:22,360 --> 00:09:23,200
Speaker 1: to San Francisco.

165
00:09:33,720 --> 00:09:39,320
Speaker 2: So how does the timber industry evolve over the years.

166
00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:43,200
Speaker 2: It seems like there's like this technical logical advance, but

167
00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:46,640
Speaker 2: at some point it seems as though you sort of

168
00:09:46,679 --> 00:09:50,360
Speaker 2: move on from like these smaller associations, Like you were

169
00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:52,520
Speaker 2: talking about how does that work?

170
00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:56,080
Speaker 1: Right? So for most of the nineteenth century, you have

171
00:09:56,280 --> 00:10:00,720
Speaker 1: smaller companies usually had a partner in the wood forest

172
00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:03,320
Speaker 1: and a partner in San Francisco who is keeping tabs

173
00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:06,120
Speaker 1: on the market and trying to do sales of the material.

174
00:10:06,679 --> 00:10:10,960
Speaker 1: And you have companies like Dolbier and Carson. Most people

175
00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:13,920
Speaker 1: know the Carson Mansion in San Francisco, the big wedding

176
00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:16,959
Speaker 1: cake mansion that I really was sort of a symbol

177
00:10:17,200 --> 00:10:20,280
Speaker 1: that the redwood lumber industry was the chief industry of

178
00:10:20,320 --> 00:10:23,240
Speaker 1: that area. He had a partner, John Dolbeer, who was

179
00:10:23,280 --> 00:10:26,360
Speaker 1: the one who invented the Dolver docky. And you have

180
00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:29,520
Speaker 1: other companies like this who are just kind of doing

181
00:10:29,520 --> 00:10:33,040
Speaker 1: what they can and there's no real organization of the market.

182
00:10:33,160 --> 00:10:36,520
Speaker 1: People are just bringing material to San Francisco, and the

183
00:10:36,559 --> 00:10:39,719
Speaker 1: wars in San Francisco are over by Seward Street and

184
00:10:39,760 --> 00:10:43,480
Speaker 1: over in a Mission Bay area and just kind of

185
00:10:43,559 --> 00:10:46,719
Speaker 1: dumping it and hoping it gets bought. And most of

186
00:10:46,760 --> 00:10:51,640
Speaker 1: the material is being finished in San Francisco in planing mills,

187
00:10:51,679 --> 00:10:56,840
Speaker 1: for sighting, for sashion, door for pipes and tanks, so

188
00:10:56,880 --> 00:10:59,280
Speaker 1: a lot of that finished work it's on the San Francisco.

189
00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:03,600
Speaker 1: The market's very unorganized and the demand goes up and

190
00:11:03,640 --> 00:11:07,360
Speaker 1: down with the economy of California. And we know that

191
00:11:07,600 --> 00:11:12,760
Speaker 1: the California economy kind of fell off. Interestingly after the

192
00:11:12,920 --> 00:11:16,280
Speaker 1: connection of the Transcontinental Railroad, more goods could come from

193
00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:20,199
Speaker 1: the East coast, so San Francisco production kind of fell off.

194
00:11:20,640 --> 00:11:23,559
Speaker 1: But then in the eighteen eighties, Southern California is going

195
00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:26,880
Speaker 1: through a big boom and that's big time for the

196
00:11:26,920 --> 00:11:30,560
Speaker 1: redwood lumber companies in the redwood forest because they have

197
00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:33,600
Speaker 1: a lot of demand and they begin developing operations in

198
00:11:33,679 --> 00:11:37,880
Speaker 1: Southern California as well for marketing and production. Everyone knows

199
00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:40,600
Speaker 1: that a big boom occurred after the nineteen and six

200
00:11:40,679 --> 00:11:42,679
Speaker 1: earthquake and fire, and there was a big demand, a

201
00:11:42,720 --> 00:11:45,320
Speaker 1: spike in demand. But this was going up and down

202
00:11:45,400 --> 00:11:48,160
Speaker 1: for a long time in the redwood lumber industry, and

203
00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:51,800
Speaker 1: so people were trying to just make do what they could.

204
00:11:52,280 --> 00:11:55,480
Speaker 1: They were trying to organize the market. Sometimes every once

205
00:11:55,480 --> 00:11:57,840
Speaker 1: in a while, someone would try and buy a bunch

206
00:11:57,920 --> 00:12:00,880
Speaker 1: of the companies and try to the market on it.

207
00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:04,719
Speaker 1: And the biggest effort in this area was the California

208
00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:08,680
Speaker 1: Redwood Lumber Company in the eighteen eighties, who had money

209
00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:12,320
Speaker 1: from Scotland, of all places to invest in try and

210
00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:15,040
Speaker 1: buy all of the mills, as much forestland as they

211
00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:18,800
Speaker 1: could and create the big behemoths that would really control

212
00:12:18,840 --> 00:12:23,360
Speaker 1: the market. That fell apart, so there wasn't really any

213
00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:28,560
Speaker 1: ability to impact who was buying your product until the

214
00:12:28,559 --> 00:12:31,760
Speaker 1: twentieth century and we would start to see the development

215
00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:35,840
Speaker 1: of more corporate entities that changed the nature of the industry.

216
00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:39,640
Speaker 2: The money from Scotland, how did that not pan out?

217
00:12:39,760 --> 00:12:42,960
Speaker 2: Was it just resistance from these places that they were

218
00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:47,240
Speaker 2: trying to buy out or underestimated some aspect of the

219
00:12:47,520 --> 00:12:48,640
Speaker 2: financial aspect.

220
00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:53,600
Speaker 1: I think they overestimated demand and so when fluctuated, that

221
00:12:53,679 --> 00:12:57,679
Speaker 1: was a problem. Also, the way in which people got

222
00:12:57,800 --> 00:13:03,000
Speaker 1: redwood land is interesting. So obviously all this is federal

223
00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:06,920
Speaker 1: land to begin with, and people are getting tracks here

224
00:13:06,960 --> 00:13:10,960
Speaker 1: and there from sales of federal land. But in the

225
00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:14,800
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies there's the Timber and Stone Act that acts

226
00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:17,640
Speaker 1: a little bit like the Homestead Act at the eighteen sixties,

227
00:13:17,640 --> 00:13:20,160
Speaker 1: in which people can come and buy one hundred and

228
00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:23,080
Speaker 1: sixty acres for a nomine amount of money, as long

229
00:13:23,120 --> 00:13:26,280
Speaker 1: as they prove up the land and build something, and

230
00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:29,440
Speaker 1: the idea in DC is, oh, people will just buy

231
00:13:29,559 --> 00:13:32,200
Speaker 1: redwood lumber tracks and they'll have their own family farm.

232
00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:34,560
Speaker 1: But you can't do that because these trees are in

233
00:13:34,600 --> 00:13:38,319
Speaker 1: the way. They're impossible to get down and harvest unless

234
00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:40,599
Speaker 1: you have a lot of capital. So essentially there's a

235
00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:44,319
Speaker 1: lot of fraud that goes on, and companies hire are

236
00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:47,160
Speaker 1: called straws, people who go in there pretending to be

237
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:51,720
Speaker 1: average family farmers and they buy the land and immediately

238
00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:55,680
Speaker 1: turned over to the redwood lumber companies. And so California

239
00:13:55,679 --> 00:13:58,120
Speaker 1: Redwood Lumber Company is one of the biggest examples of

240
00:13:58,200 --> 00:14:01,960
Speaker 1: fraud in which that thousands of people went in there

241
00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:03,920
Speaker 1: and said they were going to buy this for their

242
00:14:03,920 --> 00:14:07,000
Speaker 1: own purposes and really turn it over to the Redwood

243
00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:09,079
Speaker 1: Lumber Company for this. So there are a number of

244
00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:12,400
Speaker 1: factors that brought down the California Redward Lumber Company.

245
00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:16,520
Speaker 2: So at what point, and I'm not exactly sure what

246
00:14:16,559 --> 00:14:20,320
Speaker 2: the criteria are, but does the timber industry become modernized.

247
00:14:21,720 --> 00:14:25,520
Speaker 1: That really happens in the early twentieth century, and we

248
00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:30,360
Speaker 1: see some changes going on because there's so much potential,

249
00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:33,560
Speaker 1: but it takes so much investment to get the most

250
00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:36,840
Speaker 1: out of it. So at this point people start succeeding

251
00:14:36,880 --> 00:14:41,560
Speaker 1: in buying other companies and consolidating the operation. So by

252
00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:44,640
Speaker 1: this point you need to have all the equipment to

253
00:14:44,680 --> 00:14:47,440
Speaker 1: take the trees down, all the equipment to move it

254
00:14:47,520 --> 00:14:50,960
Speaker 1: to the mill. You have to invest in increased amount

255
00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:55,120
Speaker 1: of mills. You have to have the equipment to get

256
00:14:55,120 --> 00:14:58,200
Speaker 1: it to San Francisco. So people are now acquiring ships

257
00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:00,960
Speaker 1: and moving it there, and often they operations in San

258
00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:05,800
Speaker 1: Francisco as well. So a few entrepreneurs are realizing, if

259
00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:09,920
Speaker 1: we organize all of this, if we vertically integrated all

260
00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:13,960
Speaker 1: the operations that are necessary, we could have much more control.

261
00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:17,720
Speaker 1: We could increase production overall, we could have more product.

262
00:15:18,040 --> 00:15:20,640
Speaker 1: And this is when they begin to also organize the

263
00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:23,400
Speaker 1: market so they have more ideas about where they can

264
00:15:23,400 --> 00:15:25,560
Speaker 1: sell it when they get it. So in the early

265
00:15:25,640 --> 00:15:29,360
Speaker 1: twentieth century, three firms kind of come to the fore.

266
00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:34,080
Speaker 1: The Northern Redwood Lumber Company is financed by a shipping

267
00:15:34,120 --> 00:15:38,560
Speaker 1: magnate in San Francisco, Charles Nelson. He acquires some plants

268
00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:42,520
Speaker 1: and begins to increase the scale of production. A very

269
00:15:42,560 --> 00:15:47,120
Speaker 1: insidious lumber baron from Oregon, Andrew Hammond, comes into the

270
00:15:47,160 --> 00:15:50,400
Speaker 1: redwood forest and does what he did in Oregon and

271
00:15:50,600 --> 00:15:54,520
Speaker 1: buys a lot of operations, increases a scale, moves the

272
00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:59,400
Speaker 1: operation from Eureka over to across the bay to Samoa

273
00:15:59,440 --> 00:16:02,120
Speaker 1: and build a very big plant there. And of course

274
00:16:02,120 --> 00:16:04,800
Speaker 1: specific lumber company comes around at this time as well.

275
00:16:05,240 --> 00:16:09,000
Speaker 1: They begin doing the same thing. They add a second mill,

276
00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:11,880
Speaker 1: and they have a huge operation. They're the largest producer

277
00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:14,200
Speaker 1: of redwood lumber by nineteen twenty.

278
00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:20,480
Speaker 2: By nineteen twenty, how much of the original redwood forest

279
00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:22,560
Speaker 2: has been cut?

280
00:16:23,640 --> 00:16:26,000
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. I do know that at this

281
00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:29,400
Speaker 1: point we have only about five percent of the original

282
00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:33,000
Speaker 1: old growth left, and most of that is now protected

283
00:16:33,280 --> 00:16:38,320
Speaker 1: in the National Redwood Park or state parks. So the

284
00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:43,480
Speaker 1: impact really grew over time. By nineteen twenty, yes, there

285
00:16:43,560 --> 00:16:46,840
Speaker 1: is an effect going on. The biggest demand, the biggest

286
00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:50,240
Speaker 1: cutting went on actually after World War Two in the

287
00:16:50,280 --> 00:16:53,280
Speaker 1: housing boom in the West, so redward it was an

288
00:16:53,320 --> 00:16:59,000
Speaker 1: incredibly popular product for construction, and we moved from maybe

289
00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:02,400
Speaker 1: a hundred million two hundred million board feet per year

290
00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:07,239
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century to five million or more in

291
00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:10,760
Speaker 1: the middle of the twentieth century, up to even a

292
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:14,000
Speaker 1: billion's board feet of lumperds. So we see this stepping

293
00:17:14,080 --> 00:17:17,240
Speaker 1: up over time of the amount of redwood force that

294
00:17:17,320 --> 00:17:17,800
Speaker 1: gets cut.

295
00:17:19,080 --> 00:17:23,480
Speaker 2: And so you know, between this boom period after World

296
00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:26,719
Speaker 2: War Two and then sort of the period that I

297
00:17:26,760 --> 00:17:29,639
Speaker 2: start looking at, you know, probably starting around nineteen eighty,

298
00:17:30,160 --> 00:17:35,000
Speaker 2: are there important developments at that point, either technologically or

299
00:17:35,320 --> 00:17:38,080
Speaker 2: the way that the cutting is organized.

300
00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:43,359
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the early twentieth century. We

301
00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:47,680
Speaker 1: have these three firms that are really corporate capital. They're

302
00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:52,600
Speaker 1: organizing production at a larger scale. They're building company towns

303
00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:56,600
Speaker 1: because they're concerned that they need to have reliable workers.

304
00:17:56,920 --> 00:17:59,600
Speaker 1: Since they're spending more, they're investing more, they want to

305
00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:01,960
Speaker 1: make sure that how the workforce in place to do that.

306
00:18:02,480 --> 00:18:04,600
Speaker 1: And at the same time, this is when we begin

307
00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:08,640
Speaker 1: to see what's called scientific forestry, and the lumber companies

308
00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:12,280
Speaker 1: themselves begin to listen to people like Gifford Benchau, who

309
00:18:12,560 --> 00:18:17,199
Speaker 1: was a very important influence in developing our National Forest Service.

310
00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:20,760
Speaker 1: And the idea is you need to plan the forest

311
00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:23,760
Speaker 1: so you have it for the long term. This is

312
00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:27,440
Speaker 1: not saving it for beauty and recreation. This is saving

313
00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:29,879
Speaker 1: it for the purposes of industry. So it's working with

314
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:33,679
Speaker 1: industry and trying to get land owners and company owners

315
00:18:33,680 --> 00:18:36,920
Speaker 1: to realize you will run out of material at some point.

316
00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:39,280
Speaker 1: And we know this from the history of US forestry.

317
00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:42,880
Speaker 1: The idea was always to cut out and get out

318
00:18:43,119 --> 00:18:45,800
Speaker 1: it as much lent wood as you can and move

319
00:18:45,840 --> 00:18:50,600
Speaker 1: on from the Northeast to the Great Lakes to California

320
00:18:50,600 --> 00:18:54,560
Speaker 1: in the west. That's the idea. And now these larger

321
00:18:54,600 --> 00:18:58,720
Speaker 1: companies are saying, we need to keep getting return on

322
00:18:58,720 --> 00:19:01,399
Speaker 1: our investment for a long time, so we've got to

323
00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:04,239
Speaker 1: make sure that we have the forest to work with.

324
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:07,880
Speaker 1: And they begin to do sustained yield for three they

325
00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:10,680
Speaker 1: begin to calculate how much are we cutting, how much

326
00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:14,320
Speaker 1: are we planting. Unfortunately, redwood is a fast growing plant

327
00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:17,600
Speaker 1: and you can begin to get commercial timber from it

328
00:19:17,840 --> 00:19:21,479
Speaker 1: in four or fifty years. So they start saying, we

329
00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:23,520
Speaker 1: need to do this, We need to make sure we

330
00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:26,960
Speaker 1: have long term So, for example, the Northern Midwood Lumber

331
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:30,919
Speaker 1: Company says in their marketing, we plant forty trees for

332
00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:35,240
Speaker 1: everyone we cut down. And these companies start having nurseries

333
00:19:35,280 --> 00:19:38,600
Speaker 1: where they're developing seedlings and trying to develop more productive

334
00:19:38,600 --> 00:19:42,120
Speaker 1: types of trees, and they're planting these seedlings in their

335
00:19:42,119 --> 00:19:44,399
Speaker 1: forest and they're trying to use their cutover property in

336
00:19:44,440 --> 00:19:48,080
Speaker 1: a more productive way. But this is what ultimately causes

337
00:19:48,119 --> 00:19:50,920
Speaker 1: the problem, as you know, because Pacific Lumber is one

338
00:19:50,960 --> 00:19:55,400
Speaker 1: of the major practitioners and sustained yield and they continue

339
00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:58,960
Speaker 1: this over time, and Pacific Lumber stays in the same

340
00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:03,120
Speaker 1: family ownership throughout most of the twentieth century, whereas other

341
00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:06,560
Speaker 1: companies because of depression, they get bought up by these

342
00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:11,280
Speaker 1: national companies Georgia Pacific and Louisiana Pacific and they're more

343
00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:15,560
Speaker 1: put into their portfolio of properties. But Pacific Lumber really

344
00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:19,320
Speaker 1: stands out because they have this beautiful company town to Scotia,

345
00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:21,960
Speaker 1: because they have good relationship with their workers, because they've

346
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:26,840
Speaker 1: invested so much, they continue with the sustained yield practices

347
00:20:26,920 --> 00:20:30,600
Speaker 1: over time. It's not to the nineteen eighties when we

348
00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:35,360
Speaker 1: get Charles Hurwitz and the new idea of junk bonds,

349
00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:38,880
Speaker 1: where you borrow a lot to acquire a company and

350
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:42,800
Speaker 1: then try to increase production as fast as possible to

351
00:20:42,840 --> 00:20:46,480
Speaker 1: pay off those junk bonds. So Hurwitz buy Specific Lumber

352
00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:50,520
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties immediately begins to say, I have

353
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:53,200
Speaker 1: a lot of debt, I need to pay off. Let's

354
00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:57,160
Speaker 1: increase production, let's not to sustain yield. Let's move into

355
00:20:57,160 --> 00:20:59,560
Speaker 1: clear cutting. Let's get as much for it as we

356
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:02,600
Speaker 1: can't quickly. We have the production facility, let's just get

357
00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:05,880
Speaker 1: it out there and go. And that of course alerts

358
00:21:06,119 --> 00:21:08,520
Speaker 1: people who are concerned about the environment to the fact

359
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:12,080
Speaker 1: that this is not only wasting away or forest, it's

360
00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:14,960
Speaker 1: creating a lot of problems in the rivers and erosion,

361
00:21:15,359 --> 00:21:17,960
Speaker 1: and begins the whole process of trying to stop this

362
00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:18,880
Speaker 1: kind of development.

363
00:21:20,160 --> 00:21:24,399
Speaker 2: So what's your sense about people like sort of workers

364
00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:27,600
Speaker 2: or people in the industry who had been with Pacific

365
00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:32,240
Speaker 2: Lumber for a while, and what their sort of perception

366
00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:35,399
Speaker 2: of this new policy was.

367
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:40,600
Speaker 1: I think the history of labor relations in the redwood

368
00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:44,560
Speaker 1: forest does have an effect on what happens later in

369
00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:49,520
Speaker 1: the late twentieth century. So lumber workers, forest workers, lumberjacks,

370
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:53,040
Speaker 1: they have this bad reputation as sort of being forest beasts,

371
00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:56,120
Speaker 1: and they are hard to organize, and they don't want

372
00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:58,879
Speaker 1: to listen to other people, and they're very independent. And

373
00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:02,359
Speaker 1: some of that is true. But over time, in the

374
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, owners like William Carson and John Vance did

375
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:11,040
Speaker 1: have a relationship. They were more paternalistic. They found workers

376
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:13,639
Speaker 1: that they liked, they made sure that they were happy

377
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:16,719
Speaker 1: and kept them in place. So there was this effort

378
00:22:16,760 --> 00:22:21,160
Speaker 1: to avoid labor organizing for a long period of time

379
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:24,200
Speaker 1: in the Redwood forest, and the fact is that workers

380
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:26,480
Speaker 1: were spread out in a lot of different camps. That

381
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 1: was kind of hard to organize them. Anyway. When the

382
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:32,679
Speaker 1: corporations start coming in, as I said, they start building

383
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:35,200
Speaker 1: facilities to try and keep their workers happy. They build

384
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:39,040
Speaker 1: company towns with movie theaters and company stores that have

385
00:22:39,080 --> 00:22:42,520
Speaker 1: a lot of products. And they are figuring that because

386
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:44,720
Speaker 1: now we have to stay in heal, we want to

387
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 1: be working for the long haul, we'll have these workers

388
00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 1: for the long haul. They start having more married workers.

389
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 1: You start having families in these company towns, and it

390
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 1: seems like people are very content. When I interviewed people

391
00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:59,439
Speaker 1: who grew up in company towns in Humboldt County, I

392
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,000
Speaker 1: was waiting for people to talk about how the company

393
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:05,040
Speaker 1: took advantage of them and how horrible it was. They

394
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 1: all said, Oh, this was a great place to grow up.

395
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 1: We felt taken care of. This was a really great place.

396
00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 1: We really enjoyed living in Scotia or Corbel in our

397
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:19,399
Speaker 1: Youth and moving on. So it seems like there was

398
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 1: a proclivity of workers to be interested in the wellness

399
00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:28,880
Speaker 1: of their company, and they were more attached to the workers,

400
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 1: and this may be what led to this very interesting

401
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:38,200
Speaker 1: dynamic of workers versus environmental activists that was going on

402
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties at workers saying you're taking

403
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 1: away our jobs where we have an interest in the

404
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:50,439
Speaker 1: company profiting and doing well, and the activist saying, but

405
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 1: you can't have a job if you cut down the

406
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:57,120
Speaker 1: whole forest, and your job may be damaging the environment.

407
00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 1: So you have that dynamic of people who've been not

408
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 1: bought into but happy with the industry for a long

409
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:07,119
Speaker 1: time and naturally being aggravated that other people are trying

410
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:08,520
Speaker 1: to stop them from doing their work.

411
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 2: But you didn't get a sense that people sort of

412
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:15,560
Speaker 2: could see what the endgame was on this and that

413
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 2: you just can't continue cutting like as they were being

414
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:23,200
Speaker 2: asked to do. After Max Sam took over, the horizon

415
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 2: at which point your job is going to be is

416
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:29,680
Speaker 2: still going to be around is measured in years At that.

417
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:33,199
Speaker 1: Point to me, it seems like people really trusted the

418
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:36,600
Speaker 1: administration of their company. And I don't know to the

419
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: extent that they were aware that what Max Sam and

420
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:42,400
Speaker 1: others were doing was going to really deplete the forest

421
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:45,879
Speaker 1: that quickly. Yes, you would figure that they would be

422
00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 1: concerned about the long term health of the job. Maybe

423
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 1: they were more focused on the short term. They needed

424
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 1: their job, they had a nice place to live, and

425
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,159
Speaker 1: they were more focused on that. But yes, the spotted

426
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:58,720
Speaker 1: out became sort of the touch point for a lot

427
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: of people saying, you're taking wing my livelihood versus preserving

428
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 1: the long term health of the forest.

429
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:13,439
Speaker 2: So what else haven't we talked about that? You think

430
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,880
Speaker 2: it's sort of important for people to understand about sort

431
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 2: of the evolution of the timber industry.

432
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: There are other efforts at conservation early on, right around

433
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: this same period when the corporations are taking over the industry.

434
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: People in San Francisco are particular concerned about the environment.

435
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 1: You know, this year a club developing. You have groups

436
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:43,199
Speaker 1: that are enjoying recreation in the great outdoors. We have automobility,

437
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: and people are going on vacations and they begin to say,

438
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 1: last time was in the forest. It seems like they

439
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: were cutting down a lot of trees. Maybe I'm concerned

440
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: about the health of the forest for the long term.

441
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: And you see efforts like developing the Big basin Redwood's

442
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:00,880
Speaker 1: State Park in the early part of the twentieth century,

443
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:05,399
Speaker 1: and you begin seeing efforts like the Redwoods League, which

444
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 1: was really focused on preserving very specific beautiful growths. They

445
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: were not concerned about the overall forest being preserved. They

446
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: wanted to find the most magnificent stands of redwood trees

447
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 1: and preserve though it's especially those that are near the

448
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,959
Speaker 1: Redwood Highway where people are driving up from San Francisco

449
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: that eventually became the Redwood National Park areas. It's also

450
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: well known, as Greg King explains very clearly in his

451
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 1: book that the people who founded the Say of the

452
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: Redwood League were also people who kind of equated redwood

453
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: trees with the Nordic peoples of the world, and that

454
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: they were Eugenesists who thought, if you took away the

455
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:50,959
Speaker 1: magnificence of the Redwood forest, it's kind of like a

456
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 1: diluting the stock of the white race, who were the

457
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 1: most important people. It's pretty crazy. So the Say of

458
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: the Redwood League had a very odd beginning, but there

459
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,159
Speaker 1: were more and more people interested in doing this, and

460
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 1: so we begin to see growths of trees that are

461
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: set aside for the public benefit. In the nineteen twenties

462
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:16,919
Speaker 1: and on from there, we also have forestry boards in

463
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: California a couple different times. In the eighteen eighties, the

464
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 1: state develops a border forestry that is mostly interested in

465
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: efficiency in logging. Let's reduce the fire potential, let's reduce

466
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: the erosion that's going on. That peters outa for a

467
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: few years. And then in nineteen oh five we have

468
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:40,479
Speaker 1: the first state forester, and we have professional forestry people

469
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: coming in and trying to help figure out how can

470
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: we conserve, not preserve, how can we conserve the forest

471
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: for both recreation and for logging over the long period.

472
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about your book and

473
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:59,360
Speaker 2: explain sort of how to conceptualize it.

474
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: A couple of books were very helpful in thinking this through.

475
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: One is a book by the environmental historian William Cronin,

476
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: who's very well known, and he wrote a book called

477
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 1: Nature's Metropolis about Chicago and the Great Lakes, and essentially

478
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 1: he's saying Chicago grew by the removal of natural resources

479
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 1: from the hinterland around it, the forests and the Great Lakes,

480
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: the farms running wheat, the hog farms and other and

481
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: cattle industries that will bring all these materials into Chicago

482
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: to be processed, and that created the urban development. So

483
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 1: this struck me as yeah, I think that's what's going

484
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: on here. We have the redwood forest, like oil, like wheat,

485
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 1: like all the natural resources of the West being pushed

486
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: to San Francisco. And San Francisco is this kind of

487
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: urban machine that is producing products for people all over

488
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: the place based on that, And so he was tying

489
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: together the country in the city and saying they're the

490
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: same thing. You can't separate these two things. Another important

491
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: book is Imperial San Francisco by Gray Brecken, which is

492
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: this incredible story of looking at the elites in San Francisco,

493
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: the Hearsts and other famous families who were doing the

494
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: same thing. They were corralling the resources over the West

495
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: and bringing those resources to San Francisco and making a

496
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: lot of money on them. So his story is kind

497
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: of the upper echelon angle of how elite people were

498
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: making this work. My interest was in how does that

499
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: play out at a local level, How are people living

500
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: with this, so I try and trace workers experience over time.

501
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 1: For example, in Eureka, there were people who really loved

502
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: William Carson and they lived close to his mill in

503
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: the eastern part of town. And there were other people

504
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: who were little more loose living and they lived in

505
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: what was called the hotel district, where there are many

506
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: different entertainments and restaurants and different kinds of activities for workers,

507
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: and they didn't feel quite as tied into the mill

508
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: owners as they did for William Carton's mill. So we

509
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 1: have different examples of people's experience working for these companies.

510
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: Same is true in San Francisco, where you start with

511
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: having simple lumber come to planing mills in San Francisco

512
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: and be milled for all the different products they're needed.

513
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 1: As the corporations take over in the redwood forest, they

514
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 1: begin thinking, oh, why am I sending this material to

515
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: San Francisco to be made into shingles or into sashador.

516
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: I could do that here. I could capture the value

517
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: of that product and then ship it off to people.

518
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: And this is essentially what we call the value chain,

519
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: which is sort of the supply chain in a way

520
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: that you capture every different piece of the production process

521
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: that adds value to it, and you bring that back

522
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: to the home company and you make more money by

523
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 1: controlling the entire chain of production. So we see that

524
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 1: this is how Scotia, this is how the other corporations

525
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: grow by adding to operations at their mill and changing

526
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:12,120
Speaker 1: the nature of what's going on in the production.

527
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 2: Interesting, do you know how, like to what degree Scotia

528
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 2: is still operating.

529
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 1: So in the about two thousand and five Pacific number

530
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: finally declares bankruptcy, and in the negotiations to distribute what's

531
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 1: left of the firm, they decide to sell off all

532
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: the lots in town, so they become individual properties as

533
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: opposed to people renting from the company, and they have

534
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: a new town form of government, and the wood operations

535
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: land with an organization that is more environmentally friendly, and

536
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 1: so they're trying to go back to the sustainable yield

537
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 1: plan and they're trying to mill lumber in a more

538
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: sustain in a little way. So, yes, those operations are

539
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: still going on. I don't know what level of cut

540
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 1: that they're doing. I don't know exactly how they're deciding

541
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: this is what's more sustainable versus other approaches. But yes,

542
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: Scotia still exists. It's a very different kind of place

543
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: because everyone owns their own house. Now. One of the

544
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: things that struck me back when I first went there

545
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: was every house was the same, every yard was the same,

546
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: every hose was rolled up the same way. And it

547
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: just seemed like that was pretty freaky to me. But

548
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people liked it. Things were

549
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: taken care of, things were good, and if you had

550
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 1: a problem with your house, the company took care of it.

551
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: So I think that was one of the attractions for it.

552
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 1: That's all gone now, so you have a very different

553
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: way of life in Scosha.

554
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 2: Now, I wanted to go back to what you were

555
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 2: talking about beforehand and what your book was looking at.

556
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 2: Are there implications for that way of looking at things

557
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 2: that you think informs stuff now?

558
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 1: I think this is really the big what we call

559
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: globalism now global economy. This is a way of looking

560
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: at production across space and back in the medieval days,

561
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: people made things in their village that use them in

562
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: their village. As modern life starts impinging on it, they

563
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 1: begin moving across space, we get hard cities. So for

564
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: the redwod lumber industry. We're seeing people acting across great distances.

565
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: They're making decisions in San Francisco board rooms about what

566
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: the shape or the redwood forest will look like in

567
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 1: the future. And I think this is important because we

568
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: can think about how things are connected today. So I'm

569
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: in California, I'm in San Francisco. We have the high

570
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: tech economy, and we can think of, for example, a

571
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 1: company that hires coders in India. So there is a

572
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 1: connection across space. There's somebody in the south of market

573
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 1: who's designing some software and they're working with people across

574
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: the globe to actually produce that, put it in place

575
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 1: and distributed across the world. So it's important to think

576
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 1: about the consequences across that space. What are we doing

577
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: when do we do something in one part of the

578
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 1: world and it's affecting other part of the world. There

579
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 1: could be good things. People have higher paying jobs. That's great,

580
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:21,920
Speaker 1: but it might be being taken advantage of. It might be

581
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:25,440
Speaker 1: we're in the environment. It might be creating great inequality

582
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 1: in income or civil rights. These are the things that

583
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: we want to look at. We can't just look at

584
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,280
Speaker 1: here is a product being made here today, or designed

585
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: here today, or organized in a certain city. It connects

586
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 1: with that kind of work all across the globe, so

587
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: it kind of helps us think. Just like the city

588
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 1: of Wood in my mind, includes the forest and the city.

589
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: Every product has a geographic shape. We should be thinking

590
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: about where it comes from, what the consequences are in

591
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: each of the places where that product.

592
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 2: Is being made. I went off on a bit of

593
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,359
Speaker 2: a tangent here about AI, but James brought up back

594
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 2: around to the idea of reciprocal landscapes.

595
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: There's a phrase that people are using now called reciprocal landscapes,

596
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:14,839
Speaker 1: which means each place is inflected by actions elsewhere, and

597
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 1: that what you do in this place has repercussions in

598
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 1: another place. So AI is a good example. Oh, I

599
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 1: want to have artificial intelligence help me do my work.

600
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:29,359
Speaker 1: That's great, But where's the energy coming to make that

601
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 1: process happen? Who's affected by it? Are people being displaced

602
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 1: or harmed by having larger energy sources in other places?

603
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 1: So yes, that's kind of the idea.

604
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 2: It's just something we haven't talked about that you think

605
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 2: it's important either about your work or timber industry stuff.

606
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: One thing that I think is really important is who

607
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:55,760
Speaker 1: lost in this process early on, and that's the native people.

608
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 1: And it's just it was really sick, and the more

609
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 1: I read about it, the more troubling it is that

610
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:06,280
Speaker 1: basically there was a slatter and people came. European people

611
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,759
Speaker 1: came and didn't understand other people's way of life and

612
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 1: pushed them off the land and treated them very badly,

613
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 1: and in fact, there were killing raids. So it was

614
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:20,359
Speaker 1: a horrible process. And those tribes still exist today and

615
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 1: they're doing really amazing things. They're showing the way on

616
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,560
Speaker 1: taking care of the environment. They're doing prescribed burning to

617
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:31,720
Speaker 1: try and keep a lid on forest fires over time,

618
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:36,439
Speaker 1: they're conserving river scapes, watersheds, and so I think it's

619
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: just an interesting kind of all the way around of

620
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 1: the cycle that people get pushed off and now they're

621
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: coming back and kind of showing people how to take

622
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:49,839
Speaker 1: care of the land in a better way.

623
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 2: Thank you to James Michael Buckley for talking with me.

624
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:56,760
Speaker 2: I'm Toby bald. This has been a rip Current Bonus

625
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 2: episode