Road Trip August 2008 Fort Bragg english

Click the Brandenburg Flag for a German translation
Für eine deutsche Übersetzung dieser Seite einfach die Brandenburger Flagge anklicken

Road Trip August 2008

Fort Bragg, California

Click the left turn sign to get back to the start page or the U-turn sign to get back to the road trips page.

Fort Bragg, where Judy spent a number of years from when she was six until she was 14, only has 7,000 inhabitants, but for Northern California, that is a big city – the largest settlement along the coast between San Francisco and Eureka. Until 2004, Fort Bragg was the proud owner of the only traffic light on Highway One north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The history of Fort Bragg is written by loggers and fishermen. The first lumber mill in Mendocino county was built as early as 1852, the first sawmill in Fort Bragg opened in 1885 and logging was the way of life here for the next four generations until the remaining Redwood forests received state protection in the 1960s.

Today, Fort Bragg is mainly a tourist destination, but the town still proudly presents its heritage as a home of hard working people.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXThis tree, displayed in the center of Fort Bragg
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXlived to be 1,753 years old before it was cut in 1943.

Center of the town is the old Company Store, now a shopping mall. Inside are hundreds of pictures illustrating Fort Bragg's history.

Picture gallery in the Company Store Judy, checking out the pictures Judy discovers a family member!

Loading logs on a ship by chute, 1870 Chute operator Logger

Logging was not only a physically hard job, it also required handling of really heavy machinery.
Judy's father used to operate machines like the one in the left picture. He also drove trucks like the one in the right picture.

Only a few blocks away from the center is a tiny pink house. This is where Judy spent eight years together with her parents and four siblings. And just a little bit further up the hill is the school they all went to.