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Had Redwood Creek never been, things would have been much
different after the discovery of gold in the Sierra in 1848, different
for the region and even for the state.
southern boundary of the county, on either
side of the coast range.”
A small lumber trade had operated
on the banks of the creek since 1840. John
Coppinger and Charles Brown built their
first mill “in Canyon Raymondo at Mountain Home Ranch” above Woodside in
1847. Coppinger’s mill sold mainly to San
Jose from the embarcadero on the creek.
Thanks to the gold rush, the embarcadero quickly morphed from a country
trading post serving early settlers to the
very busy hub of a huge redwood lumber
trade. The destination of export changed
to San Francisco and the Sacramento gold
fields. As Moore and DePue put it, gold
“immensely stimulated” Redwood Creek
lumbering.
The first mills were pit saw operations
where men on either handle of saws 10 feet
and more in length, one man in a pit below
the log and the other above, hand ripped
lumber. The task was endless — one felled
redwood specimen was 75 feet in circumference and must have taken days, if not
weeks, to render into planks —the tedium
overwhelming.
New water mills and, ultimately,
steam mills joined the rush.
Fifteen redwood mills fed the creek
landing in 1853 on what became known as
Bridge Street — now Broadway between
Jefferson and Main.
Miller Dennis Martin owned two.
Baker & Burnham’s “gang mill” had 26
saws in simultaneous operation.
Other mill names of note: Whipple,
Pinckney, Templeton, Smith & Tuttle, Mastic, Gardner and Spaulding.
There was “a continuous procession
of ox teams from the mills to the landing
at Redwood City,” according to the 1878
Photo courtesy the Local History Room, Redwood City Public Library
account, which concludes, “the place owes
its growth and present importance to two
causes — its natural advantage as a shipping point and its proximity to the vast
forests of redwood timber that formerly
covered the slopes of the mountains.”
Population immediately post-gold
rush was 150 on both sides of Redwood
Creek, whose banks were joined by a
wooden bridge.
In 1852 “pedestrians were obliged to
cross the creek on Bridge St. by wading in a
pair of high-topped rubber boots that were
kept in Thatcher’s store for the accommodation of the public.”
Shipbuilding naturally appeared in
a port city. G.M. Burnham built the first
shallow-draft lumbering ship, the “Redwood,” here in 1851.
Lumbering could not last, of course.
By 1878, Moore and DePue said, “the
gulches upon the bay side, where attention
was first directed, have been almost wholly divested of the redwood giants.”
By that time, it didn’t matter. Redwood City was the incorporated county
seat, an established economy and a growing community with development on the
way.
First, they filled in the creek basin,
leaving a dirt channel to the tidal basin. As
ships grew larger, the port began moving
out to deeper tidewater. Homes and businesses crowded the banks. More fill. The
creek channel went into a concrete box.
Development went west. Longer box.
Though it’s only two miles from
downtown to its headwaters, the creek is
the model of a stubborn watercourse because typically it runs all year, springing
from sources in “Hobart Heights” across
Interstate 280 near Woodside.
The Heights’ turn off Woodside Road
plunges down a steep bank, beneath oaks
and across a deep carpet of fallen leaves
and soft, dark loam.
Richard McCall has lived in one of the
five houses on the short street for 40 years.
The state and federal governments altered
the terrain lower down the watershed
when they added an enormous quantity of
fill to build the interstate highway and put
December 2015 ·
CLIMATE · 13