Stump Town

After the redwoods were felled, the stumps would need to be removed, often to be replaced by an orchard. The stumps were blasted out using an auger to get the powder or dynamite deep into the root system.

In 1936, the sixty-year Valley resident Francis Hughes recalled how in the 1880s Boulder Creek was also referred to as "Stump Town." She recalled that before the railroad came there were "42 stumps in the center of town, the giant redwoods having been felled to make room for the buildings."

In 1937, Winfield Scott Rodgers, former editor of the Mountain Echo newspaper, recalled during a talk at a celebratory dinner "where the town now stands was a primeval forest and at one time was called Stump Town due to all the stumps remaining where the timber had been felled. The main road wound around the stumps and crossed the river where the bank was lowest," at which place the river was forded.

Indeed, downtown stump removal began slowly in 1885, the year the railroad arrived in Boulder Creek. In May 1886, a "grand exhibition " was held in the Washingtonian Hall to raise funds for "exterminating the stumps that throng our thoroughfare." The hall was decorated with ferns and the stage with flowers, ferns, beautiful pictures and cages of canaries. The performances included a sketch entitled "Remove the Stumps" where a miniature stump was placed on the stage and two laborers were "engaged with pick and shovel, toiling and sweating to remove the same."

Just a few days later stump removal began in earnest. In August, it was reported that the "booming of [dynamite] blasts can be heard here at all hours of the day. Cause -- the blowing up of stumps." In December 1886, it was reported that the removal of stumps continues, streets were being graded, and cottages, shops, barns, and sheds were being constructed. 

This image circa 1908, from the San Lorenzo Valley Museum General Collection, is of a huge redwood stump that stood where the Boulder Creek Methodist Church now stands on Boulder Street.  Hack Huddleson stands at the top with Harry Pierce on the left and Willis Horstman on the right. The girls are (left to right) Helen, Mable, and Dorothy Johnson. Mable died shortly after this photograph was taken.