1922 Korbel Cookhouse Photo Reveals Women at Work and Community

A historical feature reprinted by the Lost Coast Outpost on November 22 revisited a 1922 image of 18 year old Rose Bussiere Peters at Camp 18 on Simpson Creek above Korbel, illustrating how women filled essential roles in lumber camp life during the World War I era. The article, originally published in Humboldt Historian in March April 1980 and reprinted with permission, traces Rose Bussiere back to her birth in late May 1903 in the Scottsville area near Blue Lake and notes that her father worked as a donkey runner for the Northern Redwood Lumber Company at Camp 11 on the Mad River.

Local readers learn that Rose went to work at Korbel at age 16. With many men engaged in the war effort overseas in 1918, women were needed in traditionally male jobs. Rose worked first in the planing mill then on shingles and shakes and was the last woman to leave the mill before she was transferred to the cookhouse a year later. The Korbel cookhouse was a large two story building with living rooms for waitresses and cooks above the kitchen and dining room. Attached on the shady north side was a screened meathouse to keep meat cool.

The article provides detailed operational data that underscores the scale of camp provisioning. The kitchen contained five ovens tended by one large firebox and a zinc covered dish out table that retained heat for steaming platters. Much of the food came from the company ranch, including ample beef, seasonal fruit and vegetables, and milk. Staples were stocked in the storeroom in barrels and sacks including maple syrup flour sugar rice coffee beans macaroni and tea. As second cook, Rose began work at 4:00 a.m. to prepare desserts before breakfast. Noon meals were served family style to 75 to 85 men and packed lunches were sent to choppers farther in the woods. On doughnut day she turned out nine dozen doughnuts at a time which equals 108 per session and 432 per week when made four times.

Beyond the operational snapshot the piece documents the social fabric of camp life with Saturday dances summertime rest days and friendships among coworkers. For Humboldt County the reprint reinforces the historical importance of the timber economy and the often overlooked contribution of women to industrial operations. Preservation of photos and first person accounts like this can inform local museum exhibits school curricula and heritage tourism efforts while illuminating long term trends in labor participation and rural community resilience.