An abundance of documentation exists on the Raggio family and the two Raggio sawmills built on San Domingo Creek and Cowell Creek, in Calaveras County, California during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The first mill was operating by 1906 on San Domingo Creek. After the timber in that vicinity was harvested, the entire mill was moved to Cowell Creek, less than two miles away. The Cowell Creek mill operated until 1924, until it, too, had harvested all the surrounding timber that belonged to the Raggio brothers. After that the mill machinery was purchased by the Manuel family partnership, and was moved north to San Antonio Creek, where it produced lumber until the early 1950s.
Mules being used to haul logs out of the high country (Click to enlarge)
Mules again, but this time the logs are on wagons, presumably because there is now a road of sorts.
Lester Raggio’s grandmother and grandfather emigrated in 1854 from Northern Italy to California in search of gold, arriving first in Amador County with one newly born child, Joe. Richard, Lester’s father (and later the Cowell Creek Mill’s logger and part owner of both Raggio mills) was born in Jackson (Amador County).
Mules and Oxen hauling logs for the Raggios circa 1910
In 1905, following a large number of small land acquisitions purchased for timber-cutting, the first Raggio sawmill was built on San Domingo Creek, approximately a mile west of today’s Red Apple on Highway 4. Its power source was steam. By 1906 the mill was operating and other structures had been erected to service the mill, mill hands, and loggers: namely, several small houses or cabins, two bunkhouses, a blacksmith shop and apparently enough barns and sheds to take care of six mule teams and a number of horses.
Raggio Camp 3 miles above Murphys on San Domingo Creek. Joe and Lester Raggio in photo.
Photo taken in 1911
Steam Traction Engine used by Raggio brothers circa 1910 (Click to enlarge)
It continued operation until 1910, when it was moved to Cowell Creek. In the same year, the Raggios ceased hauling rough timbers to the mines in Angels Camp, milled lumber now becoming their primary product.
Steam Traction Engine hauling milled lumber. Probably the Raggio brothers on engine
If you look closely, you’ll see another steam traction engine following behind. Was one of these Ol’Beth, that now stands in front of the Angels Camp Museum? Undoubtedly.
Over a period of less than 15 years, the Cowell Creek Mill cut the remaining large sugar pines and other trees not harvested (including trees in the logging camp itself) and sold the mill to the logging and milling division of Manuel Estates. Richard Raggio, who ran the Cowell Creek operation, retired at the age of 63. Ernest Raggio Sr., who presided part of the time over the mill and part of the time over the office and lumberyard, reached his 66th year before retiring.
San Domingo Creek and Cowell Creek operations are described in identical terms and with identical inventories: a “steam powered saw mill, edger, logging donkey engine, trucks, lumber tramway, dwelling houses, blacksmith shop, boarding and bunk houses, two barns and sheds.” (Ref. Calaveras County archives)
Logs arriving at Raggio Mill (Click to enlarge)
The Cowell Creek Mill may be seen as a fairly typical mill of its type, neither small nor large, generally producing about 30,000 board feet of lumber per day. What may be considered a little unusual is that it was built in an unusually restricted space on a very steep hillside that drops precipitously into the rock-strewn gorge containing Cowell Creek. Because of this location, it was necessary to gouge out the hillside to a depth of more than a dozen feet in places, and to construct an artificial shelf averaging 40 feet in width. Some of this dirt and rock was used in the construction of the dam built to hold back the millpond, upstream from the mill.
Blacksmith shop at Raggio Mill. Note men making solid wooden wheel. circa 1905
An authority on steam-powered mills writes that a mill of this size employed between eight and twelve men. Besides the fireman (who ran the donkey engine inside the mill), there was “a sawyer; a deck man and log turner to adjust the log on the carriage; a tail sawyer, who also served as an edgerman; one slab-saw man; one tail edgerman who took the boards and edger strips away from the edger saws; two lumber pilers, one of whom grades the lumber for piling . . . and a general utility man.”
The Raggio Mill and logging operations paid their workers well. But hours were long, with mill hands working ten hours per day while men in the woods worked nine. Those in the forest worked less hours to allow for walking to and from the job site. Highest wages went to the fallers in the forest and to the sawyer in the mill, because the final product depended so much on their skills. Sundays were usually the only day off.
At noon everyone within the environs of the mill stopped work and the entire operation shut down for lunch, served in the dining room of the cookhouse. Meals were substantial and heavy by modern standards, with few salads. A second substantial meal was served in the evening, after work. Many of the meals cooked were Italian or at least included pasta. The cook was also responsible for stocking the chuck wagon that traveled into the forest to serve loggers on site. Meals in the woods were essentially the same as those in the cookhouse.
The Raggio brothers owned most of the land around the mill and logged all of it systematically over a period of 14 years. Historic logging roads run in every direction throughout the area. A complete report on this mill is on file at the Calaveras Ranger District in Hathaway Pines, CA.
(Excerpted from writings by historian David Davis, Calaveras Ranger District, Stanislaus National Forest) Photos courtesy of Calaveras County Historical Society
