Driving north on Hwy 89 from Truckee you will see a right turn-off for Hobart Mills Road. Many don’t know that Hobart Mills (Mill) was once a bustling logging town with families and much more.

The Beginnings of Hobart Mills

The Sierra Nevada Wood & Lumber Company began as a small lumber mill in 1873. W.S. Hobart, with Seneca “Sam” Marlette, organized the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company in Incline (now Incline Village) at the north end of Lake Tahoe (Nevada side) in 1878 and operated until 1890.

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When Incline ran out of lumber in 1896 the machinery from Incline was moved and laid scattered on a spot on the north side of Prosser Creek, 6 miles north of Truckee.

They wanted to build a lumber town with all of W.S. Hobart’s rules. By 1900 the town of Hobart Mills was erected. Hobart Mills was first called Overton in honor of its dedicated first superintendent, Captain James Bear Overton, of the Sierra Nevada Wood & Lumber Company.

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The town would still have been called ‘Overton’ if the Post Office had not denied the town the name ‘Overton’ stating that there were too many towns named Overton already in use across the country.

Hobart Mills was a beautiful town. The streets were wide. They had excellent water pressure with pure mountain spring water. They also had a modern (for its time) sewage system, electric lights, a fire department, and all the needed conveniences of a large isolated mountain town.

The workforce averaged six to eight hundred men and the population, including families, was about 1,500 or more at times. The town was originally built for 1000 people (almost as large as Truckee in 1897). It cost $250,000 to build the town and lumber works, and the entire property was worth $2,000,000 in 1900 prices.

Single men stayed in the bunkhouses, the boarding house, or the hotel annex. Company officials preferred men with families to single loggers and millmen and tried to persuade as many men as possible to get married, raise families and provided married men and their families with small modern houses on neat streets, sanitary facilities, a hospital and a school.

Living a Sober Life

The Company also made sure the residents were rewarded for living a productive, sober life. This kept fights and crime to a minimum. There was no gambling or prostitution. The atmosphere in Hobart Mills wasn’t as tough as it was in Truckee. The other definitive rule was that churches also were not allowed in Hobart Mills. Worshipers could attend services in Truckee, or at times, the Truckee Methodist ministers and Catholic priests would hold services in the town.

Management’s goal was to keep the working men too busy to drink or pray.

Self Sufficient Town

The town of Hobart Mills was almost completely self-sufficient and wanted people to stay in town. They had their own milk, dairy, cows, pigs, chickens, a slaughterhouse, and ice storage (packed in sawdust). Besides the daily needs they also had a gas station, blacksmith shop with forges where they could make their own tools. What they couldn’t grow was fresh fruit and vegetables. The growing season is just too short so they brought in canned goods.

Hobart’s Railroads

Lumber mills in the Truckee area had provided wood products for local construction and ties and cordwood for the railroad from the late 1860s, when the Transcontinental Railroad came through. However, it wasn’t until the last decade of the 19th century that the use of narrow gauge railroads to transport logs to the mills and wood products to the Transcontinental enabled logging and lumber production and distribution on an industrial scale. Between 1896 and 1936, the lumber company built a network of more than 75 miles of narrow gauge tracks north and east of Hobart Mills. Rails were laid on rough, hastily prepared grades and crude trestles, maintained just long enough to harvest the timber, then torn up and moved to the next cutting area.

A more substantial standard gauge track, known as the Hobart Southern, was built from Hobart Mills to Truckee. The Hobart Southern transported lumber, boxes, door and window frames, and other wood products to the Transcontinental Railroad for shipment to distant markets, and returned with supplies for the mill town. The Hobart Southern also carried mill workers and their families to Truckee for shopping and entertainment, and visitors from far away to Hobart Mills.

The Demise of Hobart Mills

By 1935, the 65,000 acres of timber were nearly depleted and plans were being made to shut down the operation and shutter the town. Logging was terminated in August 1936 and the last log was run through the mill on September 25th.

The box factory operated another year with planing and custom work keeping a small work force busy until operations ceased on October 30, 1937. The houses in Hobart Mills were well built and many of the houses were moved to Truckee.

So What Happened to the Town

A fire in 1936 came within 2 miles of Hobart Mills. But much more was in the works.

A month later, Norman Biltz negotiated the sale of the Lake Tahoe holding of the Hobart Estate to George Whittell. It was then sold to a Los Angeles company. The Hobart Mills town site, the logged-out acreage and the railroad rolling stock was sold to the Los Angeles Iron and Steel Company in July 1938.

At that time, 55 houses remained, thirty of them occupied by the families of men employed in the construction of nearby Boca Dam and was just 3 to 12 miles away (depending on the route you took). The L.A. owners let some men involved in a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) reforestation project to occupy some of the homes after the Boca Dam was built.

Joseph E. Landsberg of the same L.A. firm planned a resort that would include equestrian facilities, fishing, hiking trails, skiing and ice skating at the mill pond. He also tried to get Hollywood interested in shooting films at the site but none of the schemes came to fruition.

A 1939 fire burned the saw mill, box factory, planing mill, machine shop (and one other large building) plus the lumber yard.

Nothing was left for them to rebuild Hobart Mills.

Commemorating a Time in History

There are two plaques to commemorate the town of Hobart Mills. On September 5, 1938 Charles S. Baldwin, grandson of Walter S. Hobart, unveiled a historic granite marker with a bronze plaque at the Hobart Mills townsite. The second is from August 9, 1975 and tributes the companies who were here. Both plaques are off the southside of Hobart Mills Road and Hwy 89.

To learn more about the Logging Railroads and Life in the Logging Town of Hobart Mills please join us for a presentation on April 8, 6 p.m. at the Truckee Airport Conference Room.

About the Author:

Judy DePuy is a volunteer for the Truckee-Donner Historical and Railroad Societies and board member for the Museum of Truckee History. She resides in Truckee with her husband, Dave, and their Belgian Sheepdog, Morticia.