Kibesillah is the site of a historical lumber-loading chute and for a short time was one of the most important communities on the Mendocino Coast, about 10 miles (16 km) north of Fort Bragg and 3.3 miles (5.3 km) south of Westport, California. The California coast is characterized by marine terraces, which were formed by wave erosion followed by land uplift. This process created a stair-step landscape with a predictable soil sequence: the oldest, nutrient-depleted soils are on the highest terraces, while the youngest, more fertile soils are on the lowest. The underlying bedrock at Kibesillah dates from the Late Cretaceous to Eocene periods, approximately 100 to 35 million years ago. It consists of Franciscan Complex graywacke sandstones, shales, and conglomerates that have undergone low-grade metamorphism. Indigenous peoples such as the Tolowa, Yurok, Hupa, Karuk, Yuki, and Pomo historically inhabited the coastal redwood forests and marine terraces. These Native American groups used fallen redwoods or those washed up on beaches for canoes and housing materials. The name ‘Kibesillah’ may originate from the Pomo language, combining ‘kabe’ (rock) and ‘sila’ (flat).

Gold was discovered in northwestern California in 1850, when there were about 2 million acres (809,000 ha) of old-growth redwoods in Northern California. Thousands of European American immigrants crowded into the remote redwood region in search of riches. Commercial logging quickly followed as companies struggled to keep up with the furious pace of progress, making timber harvesting the leading manufacturing industry in the American West. Initially, axes, saws, and other early methods were used to fell the trees. It could take weeks for a crew to cut down and transport a single redwood. By 1853, nine sawmills were operating on the north coast, and large stands of redwoods began to disappear by the end of the 19th century. Kibesillah was first settled in the 1860s. In 1867, a blacksmith shop was established, soon followed by three hotels, three saloons, a public school, and a Baptist church. Kibesillah had a lumber chute that loaded posts, cordwood, and tanbark. The products originated from a mill located approximately two miles (3.2 km) south in Newport. Built by the Field Brothers in the 1860s, the mill was destroyed by fire in 1877. Calvin Stewart and James Hunter rebuilt it on the original site, and it operated from around 1878 to 1885 with a capacity of 25,000 feet (7,622 m) per day. The lumber was transported by six-horse teams to Kibesillah, where it was loaded onto schooners via a gravity chute. The schooners were secured to several moorings on rocks and the shore. The mooring lines were arranged to allow the schooners to move with the surging waves.

In 1882, Charles R. Johnson became a partner with Stewart and Hunter and decided that Soldiers Point on the Noyo Headlands in Fort Bragg was a better location to expand their mill. The shoreline off the point at Fort Bragg could accommodate a wharf, eliminating the labor-intensive use of a loading chute. Three years later, the Newport mill was moved to Fort Bragg, where Stewart, Hunter, and Johnson founded the Fort Bragg Redwood Company. With few other employment opportunities, residents of Kibesillah had little choice but to follow the jobs to Fort Bragg. In 1898, the public school had 25 students. By 1923, only five were enrolled, leading to the school’s closure in 1928. Today, little remains of the settlement. The gently sloping intertidal rock ramps at Kibesillah are favored study sites for marine biologists examining the effects of the ocean on intertidal life. The hard siltstone ramps are cut by deep surge channels, and wave impacts can be severe. However, the bedrock is still dominated by mussel beds and a high diversity of macroalgae. Read more here and here. Explore more of Kibesillah and the Mendocino Coast here: