By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY Historian Logging in the San Bernardino Mountains started during the 1840s Mexican era using primitive sawpit methods, followed by David Seely who built a water-powered sawmill on Seely Flats in the 1850s. Lumbering moved into Little Bear...
By Mary-Justine Lanyon Editor The Lake Arrowhead branch library in Blue Jay was the place to be for folks who are curious about the history behind a number of mountain spots. This was Russ Keller’s monthly historical presentation, sponsored by the Lake...
By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY Historian The Highland Mill was built in the early 1890s by the Danaher brothers. They had to build a road with a trestle bridge over a deep gorge to get to the previously inaccessible virgin timber area near current day Running Springs. They...
By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY Historian The Danaher brothers of Michigan purchased one of the last areas of uncut forest from the aging David Seely, who had opened with his brother the first sawmill in the mountains in 1853. They paid $24,000 for 1,600 acres of pristine...
By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY Historian Did you know that two Crestline roads are named from William Knapp’s lumbering days? Obviously, Knapp’s Cutoff is named after Knapp, but who was he? Knapp lived 30 years in the San Bernardino Mountains, ranching and lumbering....
By Rhea-Frances Tetley Historian Part 3 of 3 Frank (Francis LeBaron) Talmadge operated a successful lumbering business in the San Bernardino Mountains from the latter 1860s into the 1890s. In the 1880s, an agreement was made between the lumbermen to set...
