The Future Is Looking Grim For Time Warp Town

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 7-12-2006 | Catherine Elsworth

[blam]

The future is looking grim for time warp town

By Catherine Elsworth in Scotia

(Filed: 12/07/2006)

One of the last surviving company towns in America, a 19th century relic where everything from the houses and streets to the churches and school is owned by a single firm, is about to move into the 21st century.

Scotia, a logging community in the redwood forests of northern California, has been owned by the Pacific Lumber Company (Palco) since it was founded in the 1860s.

Its 800 residents either work for the company, are retired from it or related to an employee. All live in one of 275 immaculate clapboard homes owned by the firm.

But the era of paternalism is ending as Scotia's debt-burdened landlord prepares to divest itself of many of its assets, including the houses, the town's impressive theatre, the museum and hotel.

Many residents are excited at the prospect of finally owning homes some have lived in for generations. But there are also concerns about exposure to the outside world.

"Scotia is kind of a little jewel all to itself," said Roger Rodoni, a district supervisor in Humboldt County. "It's one of the last company towns I know of, a well-manicured, tucked away place that's in some respects behind the times."

Palco wants Scotia to be taken over by Rio Dell, the town's larger, scruffier neighbour across the Eel River.

Rio Dell has none of Scotia's uniformity in income and housing and its rates of unemployment and crime are comparatively high. In Scotia there is almost no unemployment and hardly any crime, so no need for police.

"They're like night and day," said Carly Wigginton, 19. "Here everything is clean, the houses are the same, parents are still married with two kids.

"In Rio Dell there are lower income families, more 'bad kids', more crime."

Scotia was among hundreds of company towns built next to mines, mills and factories during the 19th and early 20th centuries to house workers and their families.

It retains the trappings of a bygone age. Residents get free firewood, the town's well-mannered children play safely in its immaculate streets and motorists stop at "duck crossings" to let water fowl cross the roads.

"It's kind of a privilege to live here," said Kathy Wigginton, Carly's mother. "It's a wonderful place to raise a family because kids can be kids for longer; they don't have so much of that outside pressure to grow up."

Palco was acquired by Maxxam, a Texas corporation, in 1986, and faces financial difficulties including a long-term debt of $700 million (£380 million). Maxxam posted a net loss of $10.2 million in the first quarter of 2006.

Robert Manne, the president and chief executive of Palco, said running the town cost the company $1 million a year. But he denied the sell-off was financially motivated. "When I came here, people came to me and said they wanted to buy their own homes."

But some are angry at the way the company and town have changed. William Bertain, a Scotia-born lawyer, described the sell-off as "the last chapter" of Scotia's idyllic history. "What has happened to the company and town is tragic. It breaks my heart."

[Rhetorical pi2]

Last company town? I think not.

Washington, D.C. comes to mind.

[GladesGuru]

Pacific Lumber is just now paying the price of allowing the leveraged buyout bandits like Milikan get away with corporate raiding for fun and profit.

Before he doubled the redwood annual cut to cover the junk bond payments, the company redwood forests were gaining on the company.

That's right, the historic management was such that the trees were growing faster than the harvest.