Regional History Project Oral Histories

Mr. Stoodley moved to California in 1902 and shortly thereafter began what proved to be a fifty-five year career with the Loma Prieta Lumber Company, first as a clerk, later as bookkeeper, and finally as secretary of the company. For a number of years he also owned his own retail lumberyard. Mr. Stoodley's long and varied lumbering experience is evident in the transcript of this oral history. He talked about logging, bucking, sawing, and wholesaling. He describes the old-style ox-teams and their successors, the powerful donkey engines; he gave a detailed account of the making of "split stuff" (hand-split items such as pickets, posts, and shakes) and also discussed mule packing, narrow-gauge railroads, the old Loma Prieta Village, and the effects of the 1906 earthquake on Santa Cruz County. The latter part of the manuscript was devoted to Santa Cruz life in the early twentieth century. Stoodley described the ethnic composition of the county, monetary practices, the coming of gas and electricity, the trolley system, early highways, entertainment, newspapers, the library and education.