Pacific Lumber Creditor To Sell Town It Got in Bankruptcy Court
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Pacific Lumber Creditor To Sell Town It Got in Bankruptcy CourtSCOTIA, CA - A big asset of the former Pacific Lumber, reorganized in 2008, will finally be disposed of, as creditor Marathon Asset Management sells off the Scotia, CA. It received the entire lumber company town during bankruptcy proceedings.

Scotia is one of America's longest surviving "company towns," a common practice in the 1800s as companies arranged to house and feed workers - especially in remote locations, as sawmills often were.  Pacific Lumber Company started logging operations near Scotia in the 1880s and needed housing for the loggers. The first employee bunkhouse was built in Scotia in 1884.

Saw Mill A Scotia was completed in 1887, employing 150 men, according to a history at the town's website. A boarding house and 100 individual houses, with more homes and hotels built as a second sawmill, Mill B, the world's largest redwood sawmill, began operation in 1910.

In 2008, Pacific Lumber Company was reorganized in bankruptcy, forming the new Humboldt Redwood Company. Operation of the city of Scotia was turned over to the Town of Scotia Company, LLC as the Scotia itself  - included in the list of assets of Pacific Lumber -  became the property of creditor Marathon Asset Management. Marathon receive town churches, theater, hotel, power plant, and 272 homes - mostly wood frame buildings with redwood floors).

Now as Marathon prepares to dispose of its Scotia asset, the town's 1,000 residents (who generally rent their homes) are being offered the right to purchase them outright. Humboldt Redwood, meanwhile, lists positions open for sawyers, truck drivers, riggers and technicians at its sawmills.

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