Montana & Wyoming Logging 1930's & 1940's

Ricci.Wright

I have watched some youtube videos today and man those were some tough people. Up high in the mountains, the Wind River Mountain  Range, cutting timber and then cutting the logs into rail road ties all by hand with axes and saws. Then they brought them down the Wind river. One old lady remembered coming from Norway as a little girl who spoke no English. She would come home each day from school and teach her Mother the words she had learned that day. It was very important to them that they learn English as quickly as possible. Quite the contrast from what we see today with second and third generation emigrants still not speaking English or broken English at best. Maybe because the states didn't go out of their way to print documents in hundreds of foreign languages???<P>

 These guys would work 9 hour days of back breaking dangerous jobs and the highest paid were getting $10.00/day. They said the best memories were about the food, how good it was and how much of it there was. I'm sure one would burn a few calories swinging an axe for 9 hours a day. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkjXqmmaP-U

danielgage

that was when men were made of steel and boats were made of wood

montanajoe

+100 danielgage.  Cool post ricci.

Horse Plains Drifter

I have read that the "experts" say those old time loggers burned 8,000 calories a day.

varian

didnt Elmer Keith provide "camp meat" for outfits like these?

Ricci.Wright

I don't remember but I know he did for some folks. I know he guided Zane Gray and his son on a trip. I will have to break out "Hell I Was There" and have a look.

Horse Plains Drifter

FCD, that's just capitalism, you know, profit at any cost. The american white man has done that to everything he has touched. Why would that area/industry be immune?

Horse Plains Drifter

Hows come this thread is also posted in the "Want Ads" forum?

dpmule

Well I have to disagree a little with FCD.

A memorial west of Dubois pays tribute to the timber harvesters of yesteryear. Timber harvesting has been a part of Dubois since its early settlement days, in 1914, timber harvesting began on the forests of the Upper Wind River in the DuNoir Valley, in order to supply railroad ties to the Chicago and Northwestern railroad. Thus began the era of the famous “Tie Hack” – the nickname for the job of cutting railroad ties.

During the Tie Hack era, ten million ties or approximately 40 million board feet of lumber was logged from the surrounding hills.

The main operation was run by the Wyoming Tie and Timber Company, whose employees were mostly Swedes and Norwegian immigrants. Their dedication to the drink, vigorous brawling and feats of strength brought to Dubois a colorful and lively bunch of characters.

Remnants of the flumes from this bygone era can still be seen west of Dubois. A 14-foot limestone monument overlooks the site of the Tie Camp.

I cut that from an article about Dubois. I had actually typed something very close to that and then found the article. The Wind River crosses the highway at the old Dunoir station about 3 miles East of the Tie Hack memorial.

But my oldest boy guided in the Dunoir about 20 years ago and told me about all the stacks of ties, just stacked and rotting away up in the timber there.

Mule

dpmule

It's the Wind River starting above Dubois and flowing down the valley and across the Rez through Riverton and near Shoshoni and then enters The Wind River canyon.

When it exits the canyon near Thermopolisit is then called The Bighorn river.

Mule

TRAP55

FCD, I worked in the woods in the early 70's in Humboldt county right at the end of the clear cut rape and pillage era. The silt washed into the spawning beds for trout and salmon, and damned near destroyed the fishing industry. The Japanese were the worst, they clear cut square miles, hauled the logs out to off shore mills, and then hauled the lumber back into SF Bay, ...to sell back to us! I was glad the tree huggers put a stop to it, but they went way overboard.

Years before that, Pacific Lumber Co. had already started a managed harvest program. It took 20yrs for a seedling redwood or fir to grow big enough to harvest. They sectioned all their holdings into 20 parcels. Every year they harvested one, and promptly re-planted, and it was very successful! Tree huggers couldn't have that, so they invented the spotted owl BS. Pacific still operates, but nothing like they used to.

hillbille

they have sort of done that in WVa now. used to be pulp and paper, then meade, now heartland, new names same company, they came in 30 years or so ago and clear cut everything to dirt, then planted pine trees, they cut a few tracks, but in last 4-5 years are clearcutting again, only the state isn't making them replant, and the guys doing the cutting, mostly from canada, claim the company says it is not economically feasable to replant, and are trying to sell the land. they started about 20 years ago leasing it for hunting rights supposedly to pay taxes on property. now they just want to sell it off, and after clearcutting it only thing left is greenbriars and junk trees/shrubs......

wolfpack

That was very interesting and informative Ricci. We still have a few of those hand hewn ties in one tunnel of the NS railroad on the territory I work. This tunnel is very dry and the ties have never been exposed to weather so they are still in quite good shape. There were several In Williamson yard 39 years ago when I started but they have all been changed out now.

asop

Somewhere I have a photo of my grandparents on their farm in Montana with livestock in the background.   He did something with logging??  SHE has a pistol in a holster on her hip