Sarvis Creek Lumber Company

For the indigenous tribes and pioneers, the forest of Routt County was a blessing and a bane. It offered food with wildlife, native trout, roots, and berries. The spruce, pine and aspen trees gave shade on a hot day. Milled timber provided shelter during the deep snow and cold of winter. To survive, wood and coal were burned inside the buildings and unfortunately many structures burned to the ground. The history of the county shows the uncontrollable destruction of hotels, newspaper presses, business buildings, and homes by fire.

“The Sarvis Sawmill was by far the largest sawmill and timber project ever put into northwest Colorado,” stated Marcellus Samuel Merrill in Memories of a Young Colorado Pioneer.  “Celly” worked at the Yampa mill near Crosho Lake in 1918 producing 10,000 board feet per day and Steamboat mill just east of town in 1919 which manufactured 25,000 board feet per day. He was paid $3 per ten-hour day. 50 employees labored at the Steamboat mill and holding pond located in what is now the Pamela Lane Subdivision.

The name of the company came from the Sarvis Creek Basin and now, more than a hundred years later, the Sarvis Creek Wilderness Area. 100 Scandinavian lumberjacks clear cut the forest during the winters and sent the logs down a wood-framed flume to a storage pond on the creek at the confluence with the Yampa River. During spring runoff, the logs were sent down river to the mill in Steamboat Springs. It was a difficult and expensive task to get the lumber to float fifteen miles down the Yampa River. It was not a large river, and many irrigation head gates were damaged. Celly noted the lumberjacks were paid $12 per day. Good money in 1919, but cold duty.

There was more regional competition, the Empire Lumber Company located at about 10^th and Yampa Street in Steamboat was owned, oddly, by George C. Merrill, Celly’s father and a partner, Rodney Manning. They had branch mills in Craig, Oak Creek, and the Town of Yampa. The company was originally started in Morrison Creek and that mill burnt to the ground.

Fire-proof bricks were an architectural improvement and locally available stones were mortared. Lumber continued as the less expensive alternative. The cost of building logging roads, flumes, repairing damage and transportation were poor business models.  In the 1920’s both companies were bankrupt.

A major player in my sequel "Mansion on the Hill" is the Sarvis Creek Lumber Company. The Sarvis Creek Basin, also marked on maps as Service Creek, is now Sarvis Creek Wilderness Area. In 1919, the basin was clear cut for lumber. Now, 105 years later, the area is an enchanting location and the re-grown forest fully restored and preserved for recreation.