“The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods” chronicles an intricate web of corporate interests that targeted redwoods in Humboldt county, including PG&E’s pursuit of hydropower.
“I get questions about the (Save the Redwoods) League most, more than anything that is in the book,” King told a packed room. “For good reason. It really was, even to me, an explosive revelation that this organization was not created, ever, to save redwoods. At least not anything more than alongside the road. And at least not for preservation. It was meant to save redwood for industry. Because the redwood ecosystem was not destroyed by fire, it was just as secure as a gold mine. So even these groves by the Klamath River that industrialists understood could not be reached for decades, could be leveraged over and over again for funds to fuel industry elsewhere.”
King asserts that the founders of Save the Redwoods League quashed an effort to preserve a swath of redwoods more than a hundred years ago.
“In 1919, Sonoma County Congressman Clarence Lay submitted a bill to create a redwood national park,” he recounted. “Two weeks later, this nascent Save the Redwoods League decided, we’re going to incorporate as a nonprofit organization. And they eventually killed Lay’s bill, and killed a very promising attempt to make the entire Klamath River ecosystem a redwood national park. That was the League’s first important work, almost immediately after they incorporated in 1920 as a nonprofit.”
For his research, King delved into the League’s papers, which have been housed in the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. He was not expecting to discover the close relationship between the environmental organization and extractive industries.
“Over the first decade of its existence, the League would publicly identify a large tract as Bull Creek, which served as a beacon for fundraising efforts,” he read from his book. “Yet League officials made clear that they were working with, rather than against, the redwood timber industry. The League’s very first brochure, printed in 1920, notes that, quote, ‘The California state highway system through Humboldt County has made the magnificent redwood forest of the northern coast easily accessible to the lover of nature, the tourist, and the important industries dependent on forest products.’” Setting the volume aside, he continued, “In the book I talk about these industries. How redwood was an essential base component of many industries. Because the growth, not only of cities and farms, through redwood stave pipes and water delivery and foundations and building supplies, would not have existed; but the power, the hydropower, would not have existed at the level it did. Industry could not have grown, other industries, as quickly as it did, without redwood.”
After his talk, King stood in a light rain for a brief interview about those industry connections, particularly to PG&E. Though most of his book is focused on Humboldt County, hydropower remains highly relevant in Mendocino County. The City of Ukiah relies on hydropower from dams in the Sierra Nevadas by way of the Northern California Power Agency. The power is transmitted by poles and lines owned by PG&E. And construction of the Potter Valley hydropower project, currently owned and operated by PG&E, began in 1900. The diversion of water from the Eel River to the Russian River continues to be a point of contention between residents in both watersheds. Like most of California, Mendocino County has been devastated by fires caused by PG&E’s poorly maintained infrastructure.
“I point, first, to Wiggington Creed,” King said. Creed, a powerful Bay Area attorney, married into the Hooper clan, who were the world’s biggest redwood merchants. After the death of the most powerful brother in 1916, Creed inherited his assets, which included lumber. In 1919, he also became one of the five founding directors of Save the Redwoods League. “The following year, he wrote the League’s articles of incorporation and bylaws,” King related. “And at the same time, he accepted the president’s position at PG&E. Now, PG&E was the world’s largest consumer of stave pipes at that time. The largest producer of those stave pipes was the Redwood Manufacturers Company, or Remco. And Wiggington Creed was president of that…Redwood stave pipes were used to transport water over vast distances. Redwood was the only wood that resisted rot from longtime water use, and was able to be stitched in palace over miles, through rugged terrain, to bring water to farms, to bring sewage out of cities, to bring water to cities, but most importantly, especially in California, was to bring water to turbines.”
PG&E owned more turbines than any other company in the early 20th century. “So Wiggington Creed owned the company that provided the redwood for PG&E’s redwood stave pipes, and he was president of PG&E, the world’s largest consumer of redwood stave pipes,” King emphasized. “And he was a director of Save the Redwoods League. So it was really a classic fox in the henhouse story….It’s really a story that was surprising, even to me, to see how this organization formed and was run by industry, for industry, to save the redwood for industrial uses…The power that the redwood stave pipes and PG&E produced in the early 20th century powered all the other industries,” King concluded. “So California would not have grown in the way it did without PG&E, hydropower, and redwood stave pipes to make it work.”
