We first visited this working museum two years ago with only half of our family. This time, all ten of us joined together to be wowed yet again.
Sturgeon’s Mill has been at this exact location for 100 years. It is as it was, a steam powered sawmill, frozen in time. Four weekends a year, they rev up the machinery to allow all of us to “Step back into History".Its history began in 1913 when Wade Sturgeon set up his sawmill in Coleman Valley, several miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. The mill operated there until 1923 when it was dismantled, loaded on wagons, and pulled by horses seven miles further inland and reassembled at its present location here in Sebastopol. It had to move because the lumber supply was exhausted in the Coleman Valley.In 1943, the mill was sold to partners Ralph Sturgeon and James E. Henningsen. They ran the mill until it was closed in 1964. This shuttered mill then slumbered for 30 years.
Abandoned, the sawmill was home to an almost 100-year-old accumulation of rusting machines, steam engines, hand tools, old trucks and wagons plus receipts of transactions and canceled pay checks that miraculously had never been discarded, dismantled, or sold. In the early 1990s, a core group of seven former mill workers and historians began the process of restoring the mill piece by piece; repairing, rebuilding, and getting the rare steam powered sawmill running.For us, this history here was mind-blowing as was the dangerous working environment.This Logging Donkey, an early 1900s Willamette twin-cylinder Yarder, is always a hit. For the gear head readers, "These twin-cylinder engines, each with a 10 by 13-inch bore and stroke, sit side by side separated 8 feet apart by a vertical boiler, and giant cable drums and gears all bolted and riveted on I-beam steel skids."There is just something so cool about a blacksmith.With forge, bellows, anvil, tongs and hammer, the blacksmith manufactured all sorts of metal items - from nails and hinges, to axe heads and horseshoes.The technology of Sturgeon’s Mill dates to about 1865-70, only about 80 years after the start of the Industrial Revolution. In the early days, logs were pulled out of the woods with mules, oxen, and horses, then hauled to mills like this one. The development of the steam-powered donkey engine in 1883 began replacing oxen and greatly increased the production of lumber.A highlight is a visit with Jim who not only shares the history of horsepower in logging, he shares his sweet Shires.These mighty horses skid logs out of the forest, allowing for selective harvesting of timber and minimizing damage to the environment.If you find yourself in Northern California over Mother's Day, Father's Day, the first weekend in August, or the second weekend in September, seriously try to get to Sturgeon's Mill. This is free, historical, and truly a one-of-a-kind, not to be missed happening!
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