Stirling City developed as a gateway to the remote High Lakes region of Butte and Plumas Counties after the Diamond Match Company entered California and, between 1901 and 1904, purchased about 40,000 acres of virgin timber land in the Ransey Bar-Kimshaw areas, financed the survey and construction of the Butte County Railroad from Chico, and used some 1200 acres here to build what was called the most modern sawmill in California along with a town six blocks long and five wide, equipped with water, electricity, graded streets, sidewalks, sewers, houses, stores, and the sawmill and pond. At first, hardy lumbermen lived in tents despite severe winters, and the town took its name from the first boilers to arrive, which were Stirling boilers. After a 1931 fire destroyed most of the original buildings, and after fifty years of struggle and the eventual end of Diamond’s sawmill operations here, the town retained its history and identity.