Rising from the Ashes

In 1895, disaster struck. An overheated belt pulley started a fire in the sawmill that spread to surrounding buildings, a warehouse, two stores, and finally to the lumberyard itself. The blaze burned all night before firefighters arrived from Eureka thirty miles away. When the sun came up the next morning, PALCO was in ruins. Damage was estimated at nearly $400,000 - almost $8,000,000 in current dollars - and only 25 percent of the loss was covered by insurance.

But rather than give up, the Company's owners held firm to their long-term vision and resolved to emerge from the tragedy even stronger than before. One year later, PALCO opened its new mill, hailed as the largest, most modern and best equipped sawmill on the West Coast.

In the decades that followed, the Company and its employees weathered economic downturns, fires, floods, supplied the lumber for rebuilding San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake, and World War I. Through it all, they persevered and continued to grow. By 1920, PALCO had built a second sawmill in Scotia, owned 65,000 acres of timber and employed 1,500 people

Leading the Way

In 1923, PALCO launched its commitment to environmental stewardship, a principle that still guides the company today. The Company started its own nursery, hired some of the first "foresters" in the industry, and began growing up to a million redwood, Douglas-fir, spruce and cedar seedlings a year. Then, in 1928, the owners of PALCO began to lay the foundation for its role in saving vast amounts of redwood forests. A few years later the Company sold almost 10,000 acres of old growth redwood along the Eel River, establishing the world-famous preserve known as Humboldt Redwoods State Park. And in 1935, the Company led the way in recycling by turning sawdust waste into compressed fireplace logs - the first Presto Logs.