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W. H. Hutchinson Diamond Match and Lumber Collection, 1870 – 1958
MSS 072
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Title: W. H. Hutchinson Diamond Match and Lumber Collection, 1870 – 1958
Dates: 1870-1958
Collection Number: MSS 072
Creator/Collector:
Diamond Match Company
Extent: Items: 8 boxes Linear Feet: 3
Repository:
California State University, Chico
Chico, California 95929-0295
Abstract: The collection consists of research materials on Diamond Match Company and lumber industry in Northern California.
Language of Material: English
Collection is open for research without restriction.
The library can only claim physical ownership of the collection. Users are responsible for satisfying any claimants of literary
property.
W. H. Hutchinson Diamond Match and Lumber Collection, 1870 – 1958. California State University, Chico
J. Walter Rogers Jr.
Biography/Administrative History
William Henry (“Old Hutch”) Hutchinson was born on August 13, 1911, in Denver, Colorado. He attended school in Oxford, Mississippi;
Newark, New Jersey; Denver, Colorado, and Redondo Beach, California. He earned his master’s degree from Chico State College
in 1961.
He worked at various times as a horse wrangler, a cowboy, a boiler fireman, and a mucker in mines. During the Depression,
Hutchinson worked as Chief Purser on passenger vessels. During World War II, he served as a Lieutenant Commander in the United
States Maritime Service where he saw duty in the South Pacific, North Atlantic, and Mediterranean.
After the war, Hutchinson moved to Butte County and became a freelance writer. He sold more than 150 fact and fiction articles
to a variety of popular magazines. He also wrote, narrated, and produced several historical pageants on California, and had
his own weekly radio and television shows. Hutchinson authored 15 books, one of which, Oil, Land and Politics: The California
Career of Thomas R. Bard, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He also worked as a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle
and frequently contributed to the Chico Enterprise-Record. Hutchinson taught part-time at Chico State College, Sonoma State
College, and San Francisco State between 1953 and 1964. Hutchinson served as a full-time faculty member at Chico from fall
1964 until his retirement in 1978.
Hutchinson died of a heart attack in Chico on March 11, 1990.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection consists of eight boxes of correspondence, background materials, oral histories, notes and drafts for articles.
Primary topics include: Diamond Match Company, Sierra Flume & Lumber Company, Butte County railroads, logging, forestry, early
California sawmills. The research material was used to develop booklet California heritage: a history of northern California
lumbering and later book California heritage: a history of northern California lumbering.
Diamond Match Company
Sierra Lumber Company (Calif.)
Lumbering
Lumber trade -- California -- History.
Match industry -- United States -- History.
Lumber trade
California, Northern -- History.
Chico (Calif.) -- History.
Stirling City (Calif.)
Red Bluff (Calif.) -- History.