Interviewer: Did they ever use horses to bring in any of the lumber?
No. My understanding was this was a transition period. There was a lot of logging done in the Foresthill area with mules and horses. I think primarily mules. Also, up until this time, I don’t think they were using chain saws. The first chain saws came out after the war. Homelites, I think were used. So it was a modern operation.
Interviewer: How many trucks do you think were hauling out lumber?
I don't know for sure. Probably a couple. They may have even taken them up to the top. They had one truck hauling trailers up to the top of the hill and then transferring to another truck to haul them down to the dryyard.
I didn’t mention when I started, but the first year that Maxwell-Christie Mill was in operation was 1947 and they had spent the previous year, I believe it took them a full year to get the mill built and up and running. The location of it was right below the little town called Westville, which was just right at the top of the canyon. It was a little resort up there. They had a bar and a restaurant and some cabins. They used to take guided fishing tours down to the Munford Bar area and Italian Bar. which is on the other side of the road from Westville.
I can remember when they were building it, I would go up there and stay in those cabins with the workers from time to time. I must have only been three or four years old, but it’s funny ho
w you remember just flashes going back that far. It took about a year or better to build it and then I think the contract to log those four or five sections, whatever they were up there, had been completed, the mill would have been abandoned at that point. My father died that winter. He had gone from Auburn to the Willits area and was on a business trip over there. So there was a possibility that he was involved in different logging contracts over there – just buying and selling timber. He, I believe, he was considering buying or starting a mill over in that area. But it was December 1951, when he died. He was born in 1904, July 4, he was 47 when he died.Going back to Sierra County and Plumas County where he been born and raised, he was the oldest of five children. He had a brother who was about four years younger than him, his name was Norman Maxwell and he was also a cat skinner at Maxwell-Christie Mill and he was instrumental in running it. He later moved back to Reno and he died in about 1967. Then Bill Maxwell-William-was quite a bit younger, he was the third brother and he died in about 1953. He did a little bit of everything up at the mill and after the death of my father, he owned a couple of logging trucks and he also went back to the Reno area and his wife Kay, who is now Kay Musil and he had five children. Hill Maxwell, Pat Maxwell, Madeline, who is a Flaherty now and Joy Maxwell who lives back on the east coast. Bill died in 1953, of pneumonia, he was only 33 years old. But they all worked in the woods up in Plumas County, Sierra County before coming to Auburn also.
Interviewer: Did the McBrides work up there Charlie and Stan McBride.
No, I don’t remember those names, but I’m sure if you ask my mother, she’d know if they were up there.
My father had someone that managed the mill. My father was involved in the selling of the timber. The office for the mill was downstairs at my parents house and Ralph Baker was the bookkeeper. His daughter still lives in Auburn, her name is Charlotte, I think she’s married to an attorney. I think his name is Beaver or Beavers. After the death of my father, Ralph went to work for PG&E also and was around Auburn for a number of years afterwards.
Interviewer: Your dad probably came back and forth between Foresthill and the mill and Auburn every other day...
I don’t know how frequently it was. I know he was down in Sacramento and that was almost a days drive down to Sacramento back then, two lane road going through Rocklin, Loomis, Roseville, Newcastle. I know he was running parts. Everytime he, I think before he went to the mill, he didn’t waste a trip up there without getting something they needed up there. Seems like I recall, that Olson and McKenzie sold fuel to my father up there, but I think they took a truck up there, oil for the boilers and running the cats and everything. I think they were up there on a regular basis. Diesel fuel – they were the Shell dealers in Auburn at the time.