Housing downturn hits logging town
When Green Diamond Resource Co. shut down its sawmill in Orick, Calif., in mid-October, it left more than 40 skilled laborers who scale redwoods, delimb trees and shapen saws out of work. It was the last of the small town’s five mills to close. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
The neon sign for a tavern in Orick, which has a population about 300. Longtime residents reminisce about the days half a century ago when Orick had five sawmills, more than a dozen dairy farms and a population of 2,000. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Ron Barlow, who had worked at the Orick sawmill for 34 years until it closed this month, knows the closure means big changes for the town. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
A forklift operater moves lumber at Green Diamond Resources’ Orick sawmill the day before it closed, another casualty of the nation’s housing slump. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Jim Hagood, who lost his job as a lumber truck driver when the Orick sawmill closed, carries a log into the hardware store he owns. Business at the store is down, he said. “When there’s no money, people aren’t buying.” (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
A lumber truck passes a closed theater in Orick. The closure of the town’s last sawmill brought the number of mill closures in California since 2000 to about 28. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Riley Childress passes Palm Cafe in Orick on his way home from his job as a saw filer at Green Diamond’s sawmill in town the day before it closed. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)