Just across the Eel River from Scotia, Rio Dell is a quiet and growing bedroom community.

  The town over the years has been the home to many Pacific Lumber Co. employees and their families. The town was settled in 1876 and had previously been called Eagle Prairie and Wildwood. The history of Wildwood is still celebrated, and got its name for being a party town for Scotia’s loggers and mill workers.

  Today the annual Wildwood Days festival event honors the city’s former tawdry reputation for gambling, bootlegging and prostitution. Rio Dell is located 25 miles southeast of Eureka on U.S. Highway 101 and is six miles from the northern entrance of the Avenue of the Giants. The 31-mile trip through the towering redwoods is an amazing display of the sheer size of the remaining old-growth giants. Rio Dell’s name mean “river in a small, secluded wooded valley.”

  Despite the loss of many Pacific Lumber Co. jobs, the Rio Dell business community has been growing. As a testament to the continued commitment to help grow successful businesses, the city recently announced that Rio Dell is slated to be the first town in Humboldt County to be a wireless hot spot.