Rockport, California
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Rockport (formerly, Cottoneva) is a former settlement in an
unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
of
Mendocino County Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish language, Spanish for "of Antonio de Mendoza, Mendoza") is a County (United States), county located on the North Coast (California), North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United S ...
,
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. It is located north-northwest of Westport, at an elevation of 30 feet (9 m). Rockport started as a small
company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...
serving the
timber industry Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
on the
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
coast among
redwood Sequoioideae, commonly referred to as redwoods, is a subfamily of Pinophyta, coniferous trees within the family (biology), family Cupressaceae, that range in the Northern Hemisphere, northern hemisphere. It includes the List of superlative tree ...
forests in
Northern California Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...
. Rockport is regarded as the southern end of the
Lost Coast The Lost Coast is a mostly natural and undeveloped area of the California North Coast in Humboldt and Mendocino counties, which includes the King Range. It was named the "Lost Coast" after the area experienced depopulation in the 1930s. In a ...
region; it is where
State Highway 1 The following highways are numbered 1. For roads numbered A1, see list of A1 roads. For roads numbered B1, see list of B1 roads. For roads numbered M1, see List of M1 roads. For roads numbered N1, see list of N1 roads. For roads numbered S ...
, which runs very close along the coast for most of its length, instead turns inland before merging with
U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It is part of the United States Numbered Highway Syst ...
at Leggett.


History

Around 1877, William R. Miller constructed the first
sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...
at Rockport, then called Cottoneva. The mill boasted a double
circular saw A circular saw or a buzz saw, is a power-saw using a toothed or Abrasive saw, abrasive disk (mathematics), disc or blade to cut different materials using a rotary motion spinning around an Arbor (tool), arbor. A hole saw and ring saw also use ...
,
edger An edge trimmer or lawn edger is a garden tool, either manual or motorised, to form distinct boundaries between a lawn, typically consisting of a grass, or other soft botanical ground cover, and another ground surface feature such as a paved, con ...
, and planer, with the mill having a capacity of 20,000
board feet The board foot or board-foot is a unit of measurement for the volume of lumber in the United States and Canada. It equals the volume of a board that is in length, one foot in width, and in thickness, or exactly liters. Board foot can be abbrev ...
() of
lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
per day. An unusual aspect of the site was a wire
suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (bridge), deck is hung below suspension wire rope, cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridg ...
, built in 1877 to connect the mainland to a small island in the ocean. Ships bound for San Francisco and other ports would call at this island, sometimes called Pelican Island, to pick up the milled lumber, which would be brought across the bridge from the mainland by
train A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...
. Miller sold his mill in 1886 to the Cottoneva Lumber Company, who lost the mill to fire in 1900. Around 1907, the New York and Pennsylvania lumber Company acquired Cottoneva and built a new mill destroyed by fire in 1912. Between 1924 and 1926, the
Finkbine-Guild Lumber Company The Finkbine-Guild Lumber Company was established to harvest and market the virgin longleaf pine (''Pinus'' ''palustris'' L.) stands of southern Mississippi during the early 20th century. The main sawmills were located in Wiggins, Mississippi, Wig ...
from
Jackson, Mississippi Jackson is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city of the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city sits on the Pearl River (Mississippi–Louisiana), Pearl River and is locate ...
modernized the town and built a new electric sawmill and a logging railroad. They abandoned operations in 1927 and, facing financial ruin, their assets were acquired by the
Great Southern Lumber Company The Great Southern Lumber Company was chartered in 1902 to harvest and market the old-growth forest, virgin Pinus palustris, longleaf pine (''Pinus palustris'' L.) forests in southeastern Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi. Bogalusa, Louisiana ...
of
Bogalusa, Louisiana Bogalusa ( ) is a city in Washington Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 12,232 at the 2010 census. In th2020 censusthe city reported a population of 10,659. It is the principal city of the Bogalusa Micropolitan Statistical Ar ...
to form the Southern Redwood Company. After a decade of bankruptcy, the mill reopened in 1938 as the Rockport Redwood Company (a subsidiary of an association of Kansas and Oklahoma lumber retailers headed by Ralph Rounds.) The railroad was dismantled in 1939. The sawmill burned again in September 1942, but reopened in July 1943. Rough-cut lumber was trucked to
Fort Bragg, California Fort Bragg is a city along the North Coast (California), North Coast of California in Mendocino County, California, Mendocino County. The city is west of Willits, California, Willits, at an elevation of . Its population was 6,983 at the 2020 ...
, for shipment over the
California Western Railroad The California Western Railroad , AKA Mendocino Railway, popularly called the Skunk Train, is a rail freight and heritage railway, heritage railroad transport railway in Mendocino County, California, United States, running from the railroad's h ...
. Rounds built a lumber seasoning yard and finishing plant in
Cloverdale, California Cloverdale is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States; it is both the westernmost and the northernmost city in the San Francisco Bay Area. The San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad reached the area in 1872. The Cloverdale Ranche ...
in 1948. When its sawmill closed for the last time in 1957, Rockport was a town of about 500 people with a
company store A company store is a retail store selling a limited range of food, clothing and daily necessities to employees of a company. It is typical of a company town in a remote area where virtually everyone is employed by one firm, such as a coal mine. In ...
, a community
town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...
, and a company doctor, as well as employee housing. A post office operated at Rockport from 1888 to 1903, from 1926 to 1934, and from 1938 to 1957. The town hall was also used for dances, a movie theater, and local plays. There was also a grade school that went from grades 1 thru 6. As the school house only had three classrooms, each room had two grades: 1st and 2nd grade in one classroom, 3rd and 4th in another, and 5th and 6th in the other. Seventh graders and higher were bused to Leggett Valley High School. As of 1997 the old schoolhouse was still standing. It is the only building left in Rockport. The original old schoolhouse, a one-room school, was still standing as late as 1975 and possibly later. The older locals referred to the three-room schoolhouse as the new school long after it was shut down. All other homes and buildings had been bulldozed 30 or 40 years earlier. Georgia-Pacific Corporation purchased the Rockport site and Rounds' Cloverdale milling operation in 1967. Harry Merlo was vice president and general manager of the firm of Rounds and Kirkpatrick at the time of purchase. In 1971 Merlo became executive vice president of Georgia-Pacific's western lumber and plywood operations.
Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) United States antitrust law, antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. It ...
action initiated in 1972 required Georgia-Pacific to transfer California Assets to a newly formed Louisiana-Pacific Corporation with Harry Merlo as its president.
Mendocino Redwood Company The Mendocino Redwood Company (or MRC), is a California based forest products company, which operates one mill in Ukiah, with holdings of over , primarily in Mendocino County. Background This relatively new timber company owns and manages ten p ...
acquired Rockport from Louisiana-Pacific in 1998.


California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF/CalFire)

The very first fire station for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection was located at Rockport sometime in the mid-1920s. Its existence was to protect the valuable timber land for the Finkbine-Guild Lumber Company, and this service was paid for by the company to the State of California. The station was deemed surplus by the department by the late 1970s, thanks in part to budget cuts spurred by passage of Proposition 13, and abandoned. Fire protection from CalFire is still provided by engines staffed in Fort Bragg and Leggett.


Rockport Redwood Company Locomotives


References


External links

* http://www.mrc.com/history_project/stories/rockport.htm * http://www.mrc.com/ {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Mendocino County, California Unincorporated communities in California Company towns in California Populated places established in 1877 Logging communities in the United States Populated coastal places in California 1877 establishments in California