Whole page on Bridgeville by Chet Schwartzkopf. Indudes photos of : pioneer Burns home; Lloyd Pawlus home; interior of Bridgeville store with Henry Cox & others; view east of town; Bridgeville 1885 school; Rangers building in Van Duzen State Redwood park; view south of the 3rd bridge over the Van Duzen River. The old hotel and store burned in December 1919. It had 24 rooms. There are about 12 tie mills & camps in the area. The are 45 pupils in the school from a local population est to be about 250. Henry Cox has been there since 1912. His father came in 1909. Before the RR was completed in 1914 Bridgeville was an important stage station, for it was a transfer point on the road to Zenia, Blocksburg and the outside. An old saloon & blacksmith shop sat where the current store now stands. Henry's dad died in 1934. He was born in Nova Scotia. His son Henry was born in Bayside. The Red Bluff road was opened in 1912 & may have been the first highway built with state highway fonds. Before that it was a toll road known as the Monroe Turnpike. Most of the lumber used for building the buildings in downstream. The 2nd bridge was built in 1879 & was a covered bridge. It lasted until 1925 when it was replaced with a concrete bridge. Tom Burns came to Bridgeville in 1869 and bought sev. thousand acres of "squatter's right" land from Sam Hoagland. He died in 1933 at 93 yrs old. His son Eel Burns runs sheep now on the ranch. Bears cause a lot of trouble. Coyotes have been trapped out by gov. trappers. Eagles do not kills lambs but will eat them if they die. Rovens will pick the eyes out of a lamb. Mtn lions don't bother his sheep. Salmon Brown, son of famous John Brown, was a grandfather of Eel Burns. According to the Robinson sisters, Bridgeville was originally named Robinson's Ferry before the first bridge was built in 1875. Then it was called Bridgeport; then changed to Bridgeville when the post office was established. The first bridge was washed out in about 1879.