Scotia, California

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Scotia is a small unincorporated community in northwestern California, located in a wooded hillside by the Eel River off Highway 101, approximately 250 miles north from San Francisco. It is located within Humboldt County.

Scotia is a company town of about 800 people owned by Pacific Lumber Company. The town is not open to permanent residents who do not work for the company or retired from it, or as consultants to the company or in one of the businesses in town. The town is small but has a basic level of infrastructure: a movie theater, a museum and a hotel with the town's only bar and restaurant, a new shopping center, a school through eighth grade, a community center, a baseball field and two churches. The company is the only landlord in town, which costs one million dollars a year to run.

Scotia was founded in 1863 as Forestville and renamed 25 years later. At the time of its founding, Scotia was just one of many company town across the Pacific Northwest, many of which closed down during the Great Depression. Scotia, however, was one of the towns to survive this period, as well as the enivronmental battles of modern times, which culminated in 1999 with Pacific Lumber agreeing to a conservation deal, the Headwaters agreement.

The company announced in 2006 that it would like to sell the homes and the shops by the following year. Regarding its legal status, it suggested that Scotia become part of Rio Dell, which is across the Eel River. Employees and retirees of the houses in town have been paying rent but Pacific Lumber Company wants to sell the houses to the occupants. The town's fire department is staffed by volunteers and the chief is John Broadstock. The fire department is funded by the Pacific Lumber Company and not by the public sector. This will change when the town switches hands. 28 men and women volunteer at the fire department.

The town consists of 274 two-to-four- bedroom cottages and, as stated earlier, are for retirees and employees of Pacific Lumber Company (this is understood to include dependents of retirees and employees). The homes were built between the 1920s and 1950s.

During the spring 1992 earthquake, a fire broke out at the shopping center which caused extensive damage. The shopping center has been rebuilt. Ferndale and Fortuna were also hard-hit by that particular earthquake.

In addition to public tours of the Pacific Lumber Company, Scotia offers other tourist attractions. The Scotia Museum is admission-free and contains artifacts, photographs, and exhibits. The Fisheries Center allows visitors to view various types of the area's native fish and experience a setting that is remarkably similar to their natural environment. This attraction is admission-free. There are free tours of the modern sawmill.

The town's elementary school is named Stanwood A. Murphy Elementary School.