Harvesting trees for lumber and other products was a major early industry; a chemical plant was built in the town to process the felled trees. The town's population peaked in the 1890s, the only time the town ever had more than 1,000 residents, and declined near-continuously from that point onward. In the mid-20th century, Red House was also an early center of the region's ski country industry, with two ski areas, the state-operated Bova ski resort and jumps (named after the Beauvais family who donated the land for the purpose) that ran from the 1930s until 1980, and the privately operated Big Basin ski area, which operated from 1951 to 1972.