by Bob Dougherty
Ken Fisher Update – Sawmills and Logging
Thalia Lubin and I met Ken Fisher and his wife, Sherrilyn, yesterday at his place just off Skyline. We are writing the history of Woodside with the Woodside History Committee for Arcadia Publishing, and Ken Fisher agreed to meet with us and help find logging photos for the book from his collection. I didn’t take any notes there, so the paragraphs below are from my recollection.
Although most people may not associate Ken Fisher with redwoods and logging, he is the leading expert in San Mateo County. Ken keeps all his historical books, maps and artifacts in a room at his home. His library on regional logging and history rivals any public library in the area. Some of his artifacts there would be fascinating to anybody interested in history, like a foot long piece of twisted and melted metal from the passenger plane that crashed in Kings Mountain in 1953 on its way to SFO. Ken said there was no indication that the pilots had any idea what was coming – they simply lost their bearings in the fog. Logging artifacts there included removable teeth from an old circular saw blade and oxen shoes.
In the end, Thalia and I received some photos that we planned to scan for the Woodside book, and a few others that may fit better in the La Honda photo archives. One photo we received was a tree being separated into chucks by blowing it into pieces. First holes were drilled into the logs, the holes were stuffed with dynamite, and after the logs were blown apart, the chunks were hauled by oxen to the sawmill.
Although Ken Fisher is an undoubtedly busy man as CEO of Fisher Investments, we talked unhurriedly for about two hours yesterday (even as the Dow and Nasdaq each lost about 4%). He was very generous with his time and photos.
I asked Ken Fisher a number of questions – some about logging and others about redwoods:
1) What is the oldest redwood in San Mateo County?
Answer: Don’t know – you can’t tell just by looking at the size of the tree, and boring holes to count the rings can’t get you all the way to the center of a big tree. The bark of a redwood is akin to the skin of a person. Young redwoods have flaky bark, whereas the older ones are smooth. However this is also not a perfect indication of age – just like some older people have good skin and some younger people have bad skin, depending on the environment.
2) How did you get interested in both the history of logging and saving redwoods. They seem opposite?
Answer: Logging can be seen as not just destructive. There are second and third growth redwoods that provide needed lumber – just like tree farms that are planted specifically so they can be cut down. Ken Fisher, however, is very concerned about saving the remaining first growth redwoods.
3) Are fog patterns changing because the weather is changing and how will that affect the redwoods?
Answer: Don’t know, although some fog data over about the last 100 years has recently been discovered, which may be able to answer that first question. Ken Fisher said that although the fog is important for young redwoods, it becomes less so for mature trees. In fact, the growth of mature redwoods may be retarded by too much fog.
4) Are there still remnants of sawmills out there.?
There are, although not so much anymore. Much of the metal from some of the sawmills were scrapped when metal prices were high and other pieces were picked up by collectors. There are a few places that you can still see perhaps an old smokestack or foundation. Ken Fisher said, for example, that there is a sawmill foundation in Huddart park that is still visible.
5) Some of you may know the story of Purdy Pharis, known as the "shingle king" in the area. Between 1870 and 1884, he produced about 3 million shingles and was the county's largest landowner, owning almost 7,000 acres. According to the “official” story, at 56 years old he became irrational and committed suicide with a gun. However Ken Fisher wasn’t sure that it wasn’t murder, since many around him benefitted by his death.