Reynold's Redwoods???

"you mentioned REYNOLDS REDWOODS!i grew up thinking it was REYNOLDS HIDEAWAY????"

Nope, Reynold's Redwoods, with an "s" at the end. It was located south of Piercy. If you were driving south past Piercy, you would go down the hill, and there are two bridges that cross a bend in the South Fork of the Eel River. As you head up the other side you will see an overpass above highway 101. If you took the exit and stopped at the top, you would be parked in the middle of what was once known as Reynolds Redwoods. It was a resort area, similar to many many others that were built after highway 101 was built up the South Fork of the Eel canyon.

I used to do the Refrigeration there. It was a clean and well kept up little tourist spot. The last thing that I fixed there was a little Frigidaire ice cream freezer. I remember asking if they would want to consider up-grading. They said no, that they weren't sure how the new freeway was going to affect them. I just assumed that they knew that their warranty was void when I saw the freezer being loaded into a dump truck with the other debris that was being hauled off from the flattened buildings.

The Reynold's Redwoods was the original home of “The Old Woman in a Shoe” that is now found at Confusion Hill. It was moved down there before the freeway destroyed it. The shoe was originally built by The Rockport Lumber company in Rockport Ca. It was hauled around the country as a parade float. I believe that it went down the streets of the Garberville Parade complete with the old women and all of her kids that she had so many of the she didn't know what to do. So she put them all in a shoe...

Howard and Betty French and their kids were on the float. Their neighbor played the part of "The Old woman in the Shoe". She would come out every now and then and throw a Chamber Pot full of water at the crowd.




Howard French that now lives in the Spanish style house on the west side of the Benbow Valley helped build it when he worked for The Rockport Lumber Company. He was also with the shoe when they brought it to the Garberville Parade. I forget what the reason was that they didn't get home with it. But I think that they had so much trouble getting it over Highway 1 to Garberville that they just left it at Reynold's and never returned for it, and it became a famous tourist attraction for them.

I am going to get some more credible update on "The Shoe". Betty French is researching it for me. I may add more later.....