Historic Pacific Lumber Company Town Hotel in the Redwoods
100 Main Street, Scotia, CA 95565
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Boutique lodging in a historic redwood-country company town. Check the venue website for current room and dining pricing.
Access
Limited Access
Historic three-story hotel building with stairs
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1923 · Pacific Lumber Company Town · Avenue of the Giants Gateway · Mowatoc Hotel Heritage · California Last Company Town
Scotia is a former Pacific Lumber Company town on the Eel River in Humboldt County, Northern California. The town was founded in 1863 as Forestville to house workers for Pacific Lumber's redwood operations. It was renamed Scotia in 1888 when a post office was opened, to avoid confusion with a same-named town in Sonoma County. Pacific Lumber's Mill A was completed in 1887; for decades the company operated what was at times the largest redwood lumber producing sawmill in the world.
The town included a company store, bunkhouses, a school, a hospital, two churches, a bank, a movie theater, a fire department, and a hotel. The first unit of the Mowatoc Hotel, later renamed the Scotia Inn, was constructed in 1923 to house company guests and visiting officials at the height of the mill's operations.
Following Pacific Lumber's bankruptcy and the broader contraction of California redwood operations in the 2000s, Scotia transitioned away from full company-town status. The historic Scotia Inn closed and was redeveloped; the property reopened as the 22-room Scotia Lodge, a boutique hotel at the northern entrance to the Avenue of the Giants drive through Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The lodge operates Main + Mill Kitchen as its on-site restaurant and remains the principal hotel in the town. Scotia is widely cited in California historical writing as the last surviving company town in the state.
Sources
Scotia Inn folklore is long-running staff and guest tradition that survived the property's transition to Scotia Lodge. The most-retold figure is a presence known as Frank, said to occupy a top-floor room. Accounts describe Frank as friendly: unattributed footsteps and voices in the upper hallway, and a specific tradition in which a guest who bounces a basketball will reportedly receive a return bounce.
A secondary tradition describes a mother and child reportedly tied to an upper-floor balcony incident in which a young child fell while playing with a ball. The folklore associates an additional account of a crying baby with a separate room. The accounts are anonymous and have not been independently corroborated by Humboldt County newspaper or historical society sources accessible through standard web search; the folklore is presented here as long-standing property tradition rather than documented incidents.
The property has not historically marketed itself as a haunted hotel. The lore circulates primarily through California paranormal community submissions and is summarized in regional travel features rather than in formal paranormal investigation reports.
Notable Entities
Stay in the rebranded Scotia Lodge, a 22-room boutique hotel at the northern entrance to Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt County. The property succeeds the historic Scotia Inn, originally opened in 1923 as the Mowatoc Hotel by the Pacific Lumber Company. Long-running staff folklore associates the top floor with a friendly presence known as Frank.
Dinner at the lodge's restaurant, Main + Mill Kitchen, in the historic Scotia company-town setting at the base of California's redwood country.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Dorrington, CA
The Dorrington Hotel was built in 1852 by John and Rebecca Dorrington Gardner as a stage stop on the Big Trees Carson Valley Road in California's Sierra Nevada. The town surrounding the hotel was named after Rebecca's maiden name when its post office opened in 1902, and the hotel and restaurant continue to operate today.
Mokelumne Hill, CA
George William Léger, born in 1815, established his hotel in Mokelumne Hill around 1851, during the height of the California Gold Rush. The building has burned and been rebuilt twice, with the stone portion of the current structure surviving the 1874 fire. In 1866, Léger purchased the adjacent Calaveras County Courthouse after the county seat relocated to San Andreas and incorporated it into the hotel. Hotel Léger is among the oldest continuously operating hotels in California.
Ojai, CA
The Ojai Valley Inn opened in 1923 as a private golf club, designed in Spanish Colonial Revival style on land in the foothills above the small town of Ojai, California. The resort is a member of Historic Hotels of America and has hosted figures from Hollywood's classical era including Clark Gable and Judy Garland.