Virtual Guidebook to the Northern California Coast and Coast Ranges
Scotia Mill and Residential Areas
on the Eel River in Humboldt County California

South of downtown residential neighborhoods follow the base of the hillslope in orderly rows, plus one street west of the ponds. As in other company towns, there is a hierarchy, with large houses for management and skilled employees, medium houses and small cottages for other married employees. Bachelors lived in dormitories or across the river in Wildwood. Unmarried women lived in the hotel or strictly regulated boarding houses.

The huge mill buildings, mill ponds, and lumber yards follow the curve of the river and railway for more than a mile. In the "Thousand Year Flood" of 1964 the Eel RIver took a shortcut through Scotia, sparing the buildings but tearing all the logs free and carrying them out into the ocean.