STEAM-POWERED SAWMILL OPENS: VOLUNTEERS, DESCENDANTS OFOWNERSWELCOME VISITORS THIS WEEKEND

There's something about century-old cast-iron machinery that attracts a certain kind of visitor to Sturgeon's Mill.

Originally built in 1880, the steam-powered sawmill now operates four weekends a year as a monument to the lumber industry that thrived along the North Coast more than a century ago. Volunteers will welcome visitors from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, the Native Sons of the Golden West also will honor the volunteers who brought the mill back to life.

The mill started at Korbel in Guerneville, cutting lumber there until it was moved to Coleman Valley Road. In 1924 it was moved again to its present location, on 24 acres along Green Hill Road outside Occidental.

A lot of the wood used to rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake came through Sturgeon's. And as present-day owner Bob Sturgeon likes to say, lumber from the mill also helped build a lot of Sonoma County "and put up hundreds of chicken houses in Petaluma." The mill operated through World War II, when lumber was considered vital to the war effort.

Sturgeon's grandfather Wade was the first in his family to run the mill, followed by his father Ralph, who went into partnership with James Henningson. Today, Bob is carrying on the tradition by partnering with James' son Harvey.

When Ralph retired in 1964, the mill shut down, but he lovingly oiled the old machinery and kept it moving on a weekly basis. His lubrication efforts paid off when the younger generation decided to restore it.

In 1999, they got the mill operating with compressed air. After a boiler was donated five years ago, they were able to get up a good head of steam. For the first time in decades, the steam whistle that once summoned workers blew again. Now there are 44 volunteers who work on the mill and restore the gardens once a month.

"There are people who love this mill so much they'd pay to work here," Sturgeon says with a laugh.

Sturgeon's grandparents planted gardens that became so famous nearly 4,000 people a year came out to see them. By the time the Sturgeons bought back that property from a relative, the gardens had been completely overgrown with blackberries and poison oak.

Thanks to volunteers, the invasive plants have been cleared and the lily ponds revealed. Exotic old plantings are once again thriving, although the Sturgeons could use help identifying some of the plants.

Sturgeon's wife, Lavanne, made it her special project to restore the office. Old pay ledgers, lists of workers and a phonebook that covered three counties are there to look through, next to hand-powered office machines.

"I wanted it to look like someone was still working in here," she said. Each year, volunteers arrange special visitor days so the public can stop by to hear the steam whistle and watch the industrial age machinery whirr its way through big redwood logs. There's music, a barbecue and old vehicles that haul the lumber and give kids rides.

Sturgeon is proud of the mill's safety record. "We got some bumps and bruises, but never, even in the woods with the logging, was anyone ever seriously injured."

In a recent film made about the mill, an older man who had worked there happily waves his hands. "We kept all our fingers," he says.