Sonoma County has one of three steam-powered sawmills in California that still works. About 60 volunteers meet each month to ensure it remains operational, fixing this or that, greasing gears and tightening belts so that when it fires up a few weekends a year all runs smoothly like it did in the old days.
When in commercial production it burned scrap wood and sawdust to fire a boiler about the size of a tanker truck. Now, the sawmill uses an Atlas Steam generator running on diesel fuel that burns about 40 gallons per hour. The mill’s main steam engine is too big to capture in a single photograph. Pictured here is Big Willie. Big Willie is a steam donkey. Its boiler, seen below the stack, holds 500 gallons as compared to the Atlas’ estimated 8,000-gallon tank.
It’s quite an operation to see. Visitors are welcome on a few weekends a year, when the mill is fired up as a living history museum.
FUN FACTS: The Korbel brothers built Sturgeon’s Mill. Wade Sturgeon purchased it in 1914 and moved the mill to the Coleman Valley. A second move, in 1923, brought the mill to Green Hill Road, Sebastopol. It ran there till 1964. It slumbered 30 years until coming to life again in the 1990s as a restoration project. It runs today as it did a century ago—English Shire horses pulling logs; the teamed pair named Willing and Able. The blacksmith shop also operates on steam power, making and fixing original tools used in lumbering.
Interesting turns of phrase were derived from work done in olden days. Drivers of teamed horses were called “teamsters.” Blacksmiths with “too many irons (projects) in the fire” would likely mess one up. To “lose your temper” refers to a blacksmith needing to maintain a specific temperature when forging the highest quality steel. “Gotta strike while the iron is hot,” “to go at something hammer and tongs” and “has a nice ring to it” are all expressions from the blacksmithing trade.
A steam donkey uses winches and cables to haul or lift logs. When in the mill’s yard it’s called a “yarder,” like Big Willie. When on rails or a sled in the woods, it’s a steam donkey.
More information at sturgeonsmill.com.
