People at the present time may be surprised to know that the manufacture of leather was the third most important industry in Humboldt County during the late 188Os, 189Os and the early 1900s. In 1893, there were three tanneries: one in Arcata, one near Eureka, and one at Rohnerville. The bark for tanning was obtained from the tan-bark oak forests in the county, and part of raw hides were supplied by butchers of the county, but the larger portion was procured from San Francisco.

In Southern Humboldt County, the Wagner family from Stockton built the only extract plant on the Pacific Coast. It all started when Grandfather Charles Wagner came to California from Germany as a young man of eighteen to join the gold miners and to escape recruitment for the Kaiser’s Army. He went to the Mother Lode Country but failed to find gold. His father had operated a tannery in Germany, and Charles had worked for him. At this time there was a huge demand for buckskin, and Charles decided to build a tannery in the town of Stockton on the San Joaquin River.

In order to cure and preserve the skins from the animals, the chemical extract, tannic acid, was needed. This ingredient was obtained from the oak trees in Sacramento Valley. Charles married and a son, Edward, was born, who later joined his father in the tanning business.

The Wagners ran out of oak trees, and the two of them made a trip into Northern California in 1901 where they discovered a good concentration of California tan oak trees which grew among the redwoods in the watershed of the area near Briceland in southern Humboldt County. Here the Wagners decided to build an extract plant which would be cheaper and more convenient the than shipping the tan oak bark to Stockton.

In order to get the tan oak trees, the Wagners had to buy land and stumpage rights on the lands of the homesteaders. Many of the homesteaders found that they could not make a living on their forty acres of poor land, and they sold out to the Wagners who finally acquired some 7,000 acres. In 1902, the Wagners built a huge extract plant at Briceland, the only one of its kind on the Pacific Coast. In order to get the thick extract liquid called “molasses,” large redwood tanks, 12 feet in diameter and 20 feet high were installed in a large two-story building. Then by a simple process, like making coffee iu a percolator, the ground-up bark would be put in the false tops and hot water would be pumped over and over the bark chips until the bark was spent. The dark water would then be pumped into another tank with fresh bark to strengthen the liquid. This process was repeated through six tanks until the liquid was pumped into a huge copper vacuum where it was boiled down to make a thick molasses-like consistency.

This heavy concentrate of tanning material was then poured into a barrel, and was like “getting several cords of bark into one barrel.” These heavy barrels were moved by teams to Shelter Cove, and then by a contracted ship to the Stockton plant where the “molasses” was emptied into vats to determine the proper strength for tanning. This was a cheap way to send the tanning ingredient to Stockton.

At the Briceland plant there were drying sheds for the bark, a barrel factory where 50-gallon oak barrels were made to transport the syrup extract, and a barn yard which contained a blacksmith, a mule-shoeing man, and 100 mules. There were also bunkhouses and a cookhouse building where “logger” meals were served.

The plant only operated in the summer because the road to Shelter Cove was too muddy during the rainy season. The Wagners employed about 100 local people during the summer, and Briceland was a bigger town at that time than Garberville. The town consisted of a store, a hotel, several saloons, and many homes.

Two woods camps were usually established in a central location in the woods where there was a cook tent, a dining tent, and sleeping tents for the men. The bark was usually collected in the spring when the sap was running and the bark could be easily split. First the bark was cut and taken from the lower trunk of the tree, and then the bark of the tree was cut from the top down, and the rest of the bark was removed. There was much waste in the barking operations. The bark was stacked along the trails, and loaded on mules which took the bark out of the canyons up to the roads where the bark was loaded onto horse wagons and taken to the Briceland plant where it was dried for one year before being processed.

The big problem in the tan bark operation was the roads.

These were only pack trails to Shelter Cove, and the Wagners had to build a road for the wagon trains with horses and plows and Fresno scrapers. The roads were built along the ridges so that there would be little dirt to move and where the rains would not wash out the roads.

Four fifty-gallon heavy barrels, weighing 300 pounds each, were placed on wagons and drawn by six horses. Halfway between Briceland and Shelter Cove a camp was established with a barn, feed, and relief teams. The teamsters with their wagons would start at daylight and arrive at the halfway station or “nooning grounds” at noon. A wagon would also arrive about the same time from Shelter Cove with a load of merchandise, and the teamsters would exchange loads. After getting fresh horses, the teamsters would head back to their respective areas. The steep terrain and weight of the barrels were a severe strain on the horses and they would be relieved at the halfway point. By this procedure, each teamsters could go back home every night.

The Wagners operated the extract plant for twenty years, from 1902 to 1922. In time Grandfather Charles Wagner turned the plant over to his son Edward who spent part of the summers in Briceland. Edward and his wife had two were born in the early 1900’s. Every summer the boys and their mother would come to Briceland. They started their long trip from Stockton to San Francisco where they stayed overnight. Then by train they arrived in Willits where they again spent the night before taking the train to Fort Bragg on the coast. The next day they traveled by horse stage to Usal where they spent the night, and the next day to Four Corners where there was a rig waiting to take them to Briceland.

When Edward and Charles got older, they went to work in the family business. About 1921, the Wagners ran out of tan bark, and they wanted to relocate their plant near Highway 101 in order to have access to more areas of tan bark. The County would not help them build a road, so the Wagners decided to forget the new venture. As time went on, the demand for tannic acid and leather declined sharply.

The reason for the decline was that from 1900 to 1920 there was a huge market for leather goods in the Orient, specifically in Japan and China. The aggressive Japanese came to America where they learned the business and hired men to build plants in Japan where they developed their own industry and took over the Orient trade. The local domestic market for shoe leather was very small because most shoes were made in the East.

About 1928, all the tanneries on the Pacific Coast went out of business. The Wagners closed their Briceland plant in 1922 and the Stockton plant in 1928.

When the tannery closed in Stockton, Edward, who always liked to fly, took over the Stockton airport. When World War II started, he signed a contract with the Government to train pilots at Carson City, Nevada. When there was a surplus of pilots in 1944, Edward, in order to help the war effort, came back to the Briceland acres to develop a sheep ranch. He ranched until 1970 when he retired. He now lives in Garberville and spends his leisure time traveling in foreign countries.

His young brother, Charles, who has two degrees from Stanford, a B.A. in Chemical Engineering and an M.A. in Business Administration, took over the tannery buildings in Stockton and developed a successful moving and storage business He is now semi-retired, and maintains a second home near Garberville.

The Wagner acres near Briceland are now managed by professional foresters who follow a cycle of rotation. Trees are planted, and over half a million feet of timber is cut each year and sold to the local mills. The Wagners purchased more land recently and are now harvesting Monterey pines.

When their father died in 1940, the boys wanted to establish a memorial for him in the form of a redwood grove because he had been a pioneer in southern Humboldt County. They were able to purchase 80 acres of virgin redwood six miles north of Prairie Creek Park, and they established the Edward Wagner Memorial Grove in his honor.

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The story above was originally printed in the November/December 1977 issue of The Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society, and is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.