Sierra
County
Biographies
CECIL D. TERWILLIGER
Cecil
D. Terwilliger, numbered among the outstanding
business men of Loyalton, is the secretary, treasurer
and manager of the Clover Valley Lumber Company, which is the most important industry
at this place, giving steady employment to many persons. He was born at Hampshire, fourteen miles from
Elgin, Illinois, on the 6th of February, 1886, a son of Charles W.
and Carolina (Suhr) Terwilliger,
who are now living near San Jose, this state, where the father, now seventy
years of age, is engaged in fruit growing.
The Terwilliger family was numbered among the
early settlers of Elgin, Illinois, and its members have been prominent and
active in the various communities in which they have located. Of the three children born to Charles W. and
Caroline Terwilliger, Cecil D. is the second in order
of birth. When he was about one year old
the family came to California, the journey by railroad from Illinois requiring
about three weeks’ time. They located
first as Roseville, Placer County, but later removed to Yreka, a ten days’
journey.
Cecil
D. Terwilliger was reared on his father’s ranch near
Morgan Hill, Santa Clara County, and received his education in the public
schools of that locality and the high school at San Jose. He was first regularly employed in fruit
growing, but later went to work for the Tonopah Railroad, with which he was
identified for three years. In 1906 he
engaged in the lumber business, later becoming superintendent of the Verd Lumber Company, of Reno, Nevada. He became one of the organizers of the Clover
Valley Lumber Company at Loyalton in April, 1917,
actual operations in the sawmill at Loyalton being started in August of that year. They took over the old Horton mill, but it
was destroyed by fire in 1919. They took
over the Roberts Lumber Company’s sawmill at Loyalton,
which had been started by the four Lyons brothers in 1903, being one of the
pioneer sawmills of this locality, and it was one of the mills acquired by the
Clover Valley Lumber Company in 1917.
The Boca & Loyalton Railroad had built the
line which is now the B & L division of the Western Pacific Railroad, from
Boca to Loyalton, for the purpose of supplying logs
to the Roberts sawmill at the latter place during the early days of the lumber
industry here. This is a fine mill,
containing two band saws, one on each side of the mill, and is operated
continuously, with day and night shifts.
This mill has been greatly enlarged and improved, and a large planing mill and extensive box factory have been
established by the Clover Valley Lumber Company. The daily output of the sawmill is three
hundred thousand feet, the product consisting mainly of the celebrated
California white pine number of commerce, the tress cut being of the species Pinus Ponderosa. The
company also cuts California sugar pine, which makes an excellent finishing
lumber, worth about one hundred and fifty dollars a thousand feet, when dried
and planed. They also maintain a moulding factory, and all of the machinery of the plant is
operated by electric power, generated by the company’s own Corliss and other
steam engines. The boilers utilize the
sawdust and other refuse from the mill and factory for fuel. About four hundred and fifty men are employed
in the entire plant at Loyalton, which means that it
is the nucleus of the material prosperity of the community. In the development of this great business Mr.
Terwilliger has been a most important factor and he
has devoted his attention closely to its interests. A man of great energy, of sound and practical
judgment and pleasing personality, he has proven tactful and successful in
handling men and commands their respect and cooperation.
On June 2, 1913, at Reno, Nevada,
Mr. Terwilliger was united in marriage to Miss Valma Howland, who is a native of this state, and they are
the parents of a daughter, Barbara, now ten years of age. He is a member of the Free and Accepted
Masons at Reno, Nevada, has attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite, and belongs to Karak Temple
of the Mystic Shrine. Though his
business interests are practically all at Loyalton,
Mr. Terwilliger maintains his home in Reno and votes
there. He was a member of the board of
county commissioners of Washoe County, Nevada, his sole motive for seeking
election to that office being that he might thus be able to more rapidly
promote the construction of good roads in the county, and became the moving
force which culminated in the construction of paved roads in that locality. Since then the road building program there has
been extended, roads having been built through to Carson City and from Reno to
the California state line. Mr. Terwilliger is also a strong advocate of good roads for
Sierra County, California. He is a Republican
in his political views and during the World War served on the state council of
defense in Nevada.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 3 Pages 154-156. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010 Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Sierra County Biographies