Below: Loggers outside a bunkhouse near Buxton.
Below: There were many boasts about the world’s “tallest” flagpoles and spar poles. This was a 1912 promo from Timber City.
Below: Whipsaws to Chainsaws exhibit at the Washington County Museum.
Logging Memories
A third-generation logger recounts his own and his father’s recollections of life in the woods and details some of the history of this key industry in the development of Washington County.
I am a third generation logger. My father grew up at the site of the Yeon & Pelton Logging Company where his father worked in Rainier, Ore. My father started in the woods in 1910 at age 15 and worked at logging or closely related jobs until after 1965.
Dynamite
Dynamite was probably used from the beginning of logging in the late 19th century. It was primarily used in the woods to help build roads, blow stumps that were in the way of logging skid roads, and create choker holes under the logs. With large timber, it was not always possible to get the choker around the logs. Some, especially windfalls, were half buried. Remember, this is old-growth timber. In the Tillamook Burn, the limbs were burned off, and the logs often settled into the ground.
Those of us who rigged logs in the 1950s used from one to three sticks of dynamite to blow holes. Although a full-time “powder monkey” would sometimes be employed to blow holes ahead of the crew that moved logs to a landing, other companies had their rigging men carry primers in the side pockets of their logger jeans. We would load an electric cap in one end of a stick of dynamite. A flashlight battery exploded the caps, which were about the size of a 22-caliber shell. The explosion’s power was equal to a large firecracker. That is all it took to explode dynamite.
One time, I had several pockets loaded and accidentally put the battery in the same pocket as a primer. As soon as I had done this, I realized my mistake. I froze, and with sweat rolling off my head, reached in my pocket with one finger. As soon as I could feel my finger on one end of the battery, I knew the circuit was broken. The panic was over. I found the other end with my thumb and withdrew the battery, heaved a sigh of relief and pulled it out. I did not tell anyone there about my foolishness.
In those days hardly anyone but loggers and hunters went into the woods, so most of the year, there was no problem of dynamite getting into the wrong hands. However, dynamite could be easily found in half-emptied boxes on the ground near logging operations. Loggers had no formal training for handling dynamite and no permit was necessary to use it.
Tall Trees
There was once a flagpole at Koster Products Logging Co. Camp, which was 5.5 railroad miles southwest of Vernonia. Our present road system would locate it near McDonald Road where it intersects with the Vernonia Highway. According to long-time logger Ralph Bergerson, this was the world’s tallest one-piece natural standing flagpole. The tree was topped about 1924. Because it was cedar, which is rot-resistant, it remained a long time after the loggers left.
Some say the world’s largest living Douglas fir Christmas tree is located in Boring, Ore. The tree is 160 feet tall and nearly seven feet in diameter at the base. Glen Althauser decorates it every year for the season. Glen has several logging artifacts on his place as well.
About 1916, high-lead logging became the vogue, which is a system using cables rigged to a large tree from 100 to 200 feet high with six to 13 guylines to move logs to a landing. The increased efficiency vastly changed the logging industry, mostly in good ways. However, the faster tempo and overhead rigging increased the accident rate. Most spar trees had 10 guy-lines and were from 100-200 feet high. It took highly skilled loggers one to three days to complete the rigging. The large companies had crews whose sole job was rigging trees ahead of the logging. Some companies put their best crews on this job because rigging required a great deal of skill and leadership.
Bunkhouses and Bedbugs
Following is a quote by my father, Lee Johnson from his experience in 1913 when he worked for Eastern-Western at Longview, Wash. Lee was 18 at the time:
“There were a few small bunkhouses, and also three big ones holding 50 men each. They had double-deck bunks of wood with plenty of places for bedbugs to hide in during the day. Each had two large stoves going full blast, and with wet clothing hanging all over, one can imagine the atmosphere. I don’t remember if we had electric or kerosene lights, but I know there was lots of kerosene used on the bugs. If those bunkhouses ever caught on fire, it would have made a good blaze.”
My own experience with bunkhouses was better. As a boy, I lived in the Consolidated Timber Company camp at Glenwood from 1938 to 1942. We lived in company housing but the bunkhouses for single men were nearby. I made friends with several of the men who lived there. By this time, conditions had improved considerably, but it seemed the bedbug was going to last forever. Forty years later, I worked for Pat Soderberg at his camp in Kake, Alaska. The bedbug problem had finally been conquered, and fewer men lived in each building.
Although primitive by standards of suburban living, I found living in the camp to be an enjoyable experience. I like working and living around timber, machines and the people who work and live such a life. It’s also reminiscent of the frontier, and it’s close to nature and away from civilization.
One of the last logging camps in the Pacific Northwest of note was Simpson Timber Co. in Shelton, Wash. Camp Grisdale closed in 1985 but its logging railroad is still in operation, a rare sight in the 21st century.
The Best Job
A group of us still log with a steam donkey one weekend a year. How many people are willing to practice their occupations for fun? Before my father died, he said that he would like to do it all over again. There is a Northwest Loggers Picnic each year at Camp 18 Logging Museum. Two of the companies represented went out of business half a century ago. How many occupations have this loyalty?
