Cutting Edge

John Sutter and James Marshall relied on a water-powered sawmill as a labor-saving machine that replaced human power. Building the mill was hard work that took many months as trees were felled, dragged to the site, and skillfully hoisted into fitted joints to form a temporary structure, but once complete it promised a large payoff in cut lumber from the surrounding trees. To operate it, the crew opened gates to send water through the millrace beneath the sawmill, where it pushed the waterwheel, rotated the pitman arm, and moved the sash up and down to drive the sawblade before leaving through the tailrace and returning to the river. A crew of three men used a winch system to pull logs up a ramp on the right side of the mill, moved them on the carriage through the sawblade, cut each log in about 20 minutes, and loaded the finished boards, which slid down the left side, into wagons. Sketches by John Strub of a Swiss sawmill from about 1914 closely resemble the construction and operation of Sutter’s Mill.

Coloma, California · United States