Fort Bragg, California

Fort Bragg grew from an 1857 army post on the Mendocino Indian Reservation into the largest town on the coast between San Francisco and Eureka: a redwood company town built around one mill, one harbor and one railroad. This history tells its story in order, from the Northern Pomo and Coast Yuki villages and the 1850 shipwreck that revealed the redwoods, through the founding of the lumber town in 1885, the earthquake and fire of 1906 and the Union Lumber Company years, to Noyo Harbor, Glass Beach and the long change from mill town to tourist town.

A second, complete history follows the California Western Railroad, better known as the Skunk Train, from its 1885 logging line through the Redwood Route, steam and diesel, bankruptcy and rescue, the collapse of Tunnel No. 1 and the legal battles of 2019–2026.

Chapters on the town's disasters, tragedies and notable crimes are told plainly and with respect, using only what newspapers, courts and historians have published. Charts trace Fort Bragg's population, people and weather, and a gallery of 394 photographs follows the town and the railroad decade by decade, from the 1850s to the 2020s.