Scotia, California, in Humboldt County, is a tiny place, smaller than a square mile, tucked just below U.S. Highway 101, which runs from Oregon to Southern California. Most people on the 101 drive right by. “It would be a good place if you were in witness protection,” a Scotia resident told me recently. “No one’s looking for you here.”
If you do pull off the highway and head down Main Street, you’ll come upon a deep-brown building crafted out of redwood trees and bearing a gold-lettered sign that says “Town of Scotia.” People sometimes knock on the door of this building looking to pay their water bills or hoping for a guided tour of the local mill, having assumed that the workers inside are public employees. Insurance companies make this mistake, too, Steven Deike, the president of the Town of Scotia, says. “No, we are a private company,” he tells them. “We just happen to be called the Town of Scotia.”
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