Cooper's Sawmill

The bronze stands in a park-and-ride lot a third of a mile from the site, and nothing of the mill remains. Its builder was born John Rogers Cooper on Alderney in the Channel Islands, a sea captain who became Juan Bautista Rogers Cooper, a Mexican citizen, and in 1827 married Vallejo's sister Encarnación. Rancho El Molino was granted to him to push Mexican settlement toward the Russians at Fort Ross. The water wheel sawed redwood until the Mark West Creek flood of winter 1840-41 carried the mill away.

What the plaque says

First Power Commercial Sawmill In 1834, Mariano G. Vallejo's brother-in-law, John B.R. Cooper, constructed California's first known power-operated commercial sawmill. In addition to sawing redwood lumber, the mill and settlement served as a barrier to Russian encroachment from the west. Located ⅓ mile east on Mark West Creek, the water-powered mill was destroyed by flood in the winter of 1840-41. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 835 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the California Division of Forestry and the Forest Products Industries of California. January 31, 1970

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Goat Rock and the Russian River Mouth — 13 mi
  A headland blasted for a jetty that never kept the river open, at the mouth where harbor seals haul out.
• Tomales Point — 21 mi
  The northern tip of Point Reyes, where tule elk were fenced in for forty-six years and are fenced in no longer.
• Salt Point and Gerstle Cove — 24 mi
  A cove where sandstone for San Francisco's streets went aboard schooners, on a point named for the salt the Kashaya Pomo came for.

More markers nearby

• Walters Ranch Hop Kiln — 3.3 mi
• Luther Burbank Home and Garden — 11 mi
• St. Teresa's Church — 11 mi
• John Medica's Castles & Garden — 13 mi