When the Mill Fire tore through the Northern California town of Weed, it not only claimed the lives of two residents and destroyed dozens of homes, it laid waste to a little-known but historically important piece of Black history.
The Lincoln Heights neighborhood, largely flattened by the inferno Friday, is believed to be one of the only intact Black neighborhoods west of the Mississippi River that dates back to the early days of the last century. About three-quarters of Lincoln Heights was reduced to smoking rubble by the blaze that residents said moved with frightening speed after igniting a quarter mile away at or near the sawmill that was key to the neighborhood’s founding.
Now, with the historic community’s future uncertain, residents who lost everything are mourning the deaths of neighbors.
