In 1852, pioneer logging entrepreneur Willard Whipple built two steam lumber mills on the creek that runs behind the low ridge to the southwest of this cache. Tensions leading up to the Civil War were already high, and being a staunch loyalist Whipple tried to name the watercourse 'Union Creek'. The name didn't quite take, however. His mill further up the watershed, to the northwest (on the site of the current Pfleger Estate) became known as the West Union mill, and gave its name to both the creek and a settlement that grew up nearby.
Sawyers at Whipple's and other nearby mills, as well as loggers working the redwoods and firs up towards Skyline, needed a place to live with their families. They settled on the more level land here, which also allowed some farming. In its heyday, the village of West Union and its fields occupied all of this shallow valley between current Edgewood Road and Raymundo Drive. It boasted a general market and a saloon, and a school located near this cache, where the PG&E substation now stands. The West Union school enrolled 72 students in 1859, showing the significance of this settlement, as Redwood City and Woodside had 85 and 112 pupils respectively in the same year.
As the trees were logged out of the West Union and connecting drainages, the lumber mills were dismantled and moved further West, to Skyline and fresh timber beyond. The workers followed them, and West Union slowly dwindled, to disappear about 1910. Curiously, the school district still survives: West Union was the origin of the current San Carlos school district; the name was not changed until 1918, long after the original location was abandoned. Other traces of the village are few - a look at the satellite view of the map for this cache shows straight lines in the eucalyptus planting to the northwest - now bisected by 280 - that probably reveal old property lines.
Whipple, who had indirectly given West Union its name, was not in the logging business for long. The boiler at his lower, east mill exploded in 1855, and the West Union mill burned down the same year. Whipple then gave up logging in this area. His name also remains, however. The well-known Whipple Road in Redwood City originated as the path to his mill from the embarcadero at Redwood Creek. The way then continued along the current Cordilleras Road, and then up the Edgewood Road alignment to the currently private Pfleger Road.
The E Clampus Vitus historical society recently erected a memorial to West Union. Its location can be found as an extra waypoint below.
This cache is a camo job.