It was the immense resource, in the lower Sierras, of pine and other timber, that “made” Madera.  While milling had begun in the Sixties in the San Joaquin River basin,  most of the lumber used in the valley was brought from the north by rail in the Seventies.

     William H. Thurman, who later became the first sheriff of Madera County, and who had been a mill man prior to coming into the San Joaquin Valley and settling at Merced, became interested in the commercial possibilities of the large tracts of sugar pine known to lie on the ridges north of the San Joaquin. As a result of his efforts, a corporation was formed, the California Lumber company, in 1874.  P. D. Wiggington, attorney of Merced and onetime Congressman became the president and Mark Howell the secretary of the company.  Others listed as stockholders were J. J. Dickenson, A. G. Ellis, Dr. J. B. Cocanoeur, John Montgomery, Henry Miller, Charles M. Blain, Russ Ward, district attorney of Merced, and the James brothers.  The enterprise was distinguished by the fact that the lumber was to be brought down too the railroad by means of a flume, fifty-five miles in length—this being the first structure of the kind in the valley.  Later it was imitated by flumes reaching Sanger and Clovis in the district south of the San Joaquin.  The first mill was known as the California lumber mill; a later one was called the Soquel mill because some the stockholders were interested in Soquel, in the Santa Cruz Mountains.