Rio Dell, about 25 miles southeast of Eureka on Highway 101, is a quiet, bedroom community on the Eel River. In a former incarnation the town was a celebrated party place for Scotia's loggers and lumber mill workers. Today the annual Wildwood Days festival event honors the city's former reputation for gambling and bootlegging, with a rip-roaring good time.

Several new businesses, coupled with a Rio Dell beautification grant, have given the town a new lease on life. Recently, the city finished the "Gateway Project," which used grant money to redesign the town's north entrance off of US Highway 101. Lots of new construction can be seen when driving through town and more is expected throughout the next couple of years.

Just six miles from the northern entrance to the Avenue of the Giants, a 31-mile drive through giant redwoods, Rio Dell is right across the Eel River from Scotia. Like its neighbor, Rio Dell is home to many Pacific Lumber Company employees and their families. The city's name literally means "River in a small, secluded wooded valley." Rio Dell and Scotia are joined by the Eagle Prairie Bridge over the Eel river. This bridge and the two connecting spans is California Route 283, the shortest state highway in California, measuring just over a third of a mile in length.

Information courtesy of the Humboldt Times-Standard