Log Ponds

[jimrice4449]

Lots of good poop above. I worked for the late, great Milwaukee out of St. Maries Idaho and live on a mountain side above the log unloader at Ramsdell. It's no longer in use but until about 10 years ago strings of log flats would be unloaded there and dumped into the St. Joe river where they were gathered into log brailes for shipment to the Diamond International and Potlatch mills in Coeur Alene (The Potlatch mill is no a golf course). The logs were handled just like interline frieght and the waybills showed routing via Rafferty Transport. The brailes were pulled by a diesel tug which looked just like a regular tug but somewhat smaller. Since there were ox-bow bends in the river between Ramsdell and Lake Coeur d' Alene they used a smaller boat to shove the ends of the brailes away from the banks as the bigger tug did the pulling. The only way to describe the smaller boats is a telephone booth (the pilot house) in a bathtub.
The bulk of the logs the Milwaukee hauled (now the St. Maries River RR) went to the Potlatch mill in St.Maries where they were unloaded by self propelled skidders and stored in big piles while kept wet down with oversized Rainbird sprinklers and this would be a bit different than the era you're intereted in.
I kind of miss lounging about on the deck and watching the occasional huge splash as the A frame dumped another log.

[jacon12]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JimValle

Log ponds are neat! As a boy I used to hang out at the old Clover Valley Lumber Company's millpond at Loyalton, California. The A frame lifted the cars and the logs rolled sideways down into the water. There was a mighty splash and a sizable wave roiled across the water as each car was dumped. Men with billhooks jumped from log to log guiding the ones they wanted to the bull chain for hoisting into the mill. The water was black with pine pitch and the men were cautioned not to swallow any if they fell in!
It's going to be a challenge to model all that action!

Jim, it is waaaaay beyound my skills but I'm gonna give it a try. I just wish I'd seen what you saw.
Jarrell

[jacon12]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nixa1

Jacon12. It was hard work in the lumber camps. My family had three generations in the woods of northern wisconsin starting in the 1870's. They all lived to their 80's. The old saying "hard work never hurt anyone" might apply. But I have my money on heredity. I hope I'm right it's to late for hard work now.

Joe

Joe, from the research I've done a lot of the people that worked the trees in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania etc, worked their way right on down to the North Carolina and Tennesse area. I agree with the work thing, my stepmother is almost 93 and still lives alone and is very independent.
I'm sorry I didn't get any of her genes!
Jarrell

[JimValle]

Log ponds are neat! As a boy I used to hang out at the old Clover Valley Lumber Company's millpond at Loyalton, California. The A frame lifted the cars and the logs rolled sideways down into the water. There was a mighty splash and a sizable wave roiled across the water as each car was dumped. Men with billhooks jumped from log to log guiding the ones they wanted to the bull chain for hoisting into the mill. The water was black with pine pitch and the men were cautioned not to swallow any if they fell in!
It's going to be a challenge to model all that action!

[Anonymous]

Jacon12. It was hard work in the lumber camps. My family had three generations in the woods of northern wisconsin starting in the 1870's. They all lived to their 80's. The old saying "hard work never hurt anyone" might apply. But I have my money on heredity. I hope I'm right it's to late for hard work now.

Joe

[jacon12]

Thank you all for the information. I've become more fascinated with this industry, especially from 1900 to around 1930/40, after learning more about the extensive logging in what is now the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. To drive through it today one would not be aware that this happened, unless you know what to look for and where to look for it (and I don't). The park is almost completely treecovered now but gone are the really humongous trees of yesteryear, some yielding a single board as much as 4 feet across. What hard, backbreaking work it must have been.
Jarrell

[Anonymous]

As of the late 70's, sawmills around the central part of Louisiana would water their logs to keep them from drying out. Once the logs started to the mill then the water jet debarkers were used to clean the logs. Hope this helps.
Neal
of ceobayline

[Anonymous]

Nixa1 makes a point on river use. Logs would be moved individually or in rafts. Again its one of those depends questions on who, what , when. Cordell Hull, U.S. Secretary of State (1932-1945) mentions in Vol. 1 of his memoirs building log rafts during winter in Tennessee to be floated down to market (Memphis if my faulty memory is close) during spring flood as a boy as young as ten (1881-1887). These were family/community strategies of making money in those times. It's probably why he decided to get a government job.

[Anonymous]

The unloading info that has been posted is accurate. The reason logs were stored in a pond was to soak off dirt, small rocks and other debri that had accumulated on the logs on their trip from the stump to the mill as this debri could and did raise havoc with the saws. Today, with fewer mills using pond storage the preferred method of cleaning logs is a water -jet, de-barker just before the bullchain (the moving chain that takes the logs up and into the mill)
Roger

[Anonymous]

In the eastern and central U.S. In the old days logging was done in the winter. The cut logs were gathered on the banks of rivers until the ice went out in the spring. At that time the logs were floated down stream to the saw mill and put in their pond. Some logs were moved by rail when the more economical stream/river methodwas not available.

By 1940 most if not all logs were moved by rail but they were still placed in the saw mills pond and then individualy run up a powerd ramp to the saw mill for proccessing ( much like running live stock in to the slaughter house). You indicated that the logs were in the pond so they wouldn't dry out but that wasn"t a consideration. Today saw mills stack there logs outside on the ground even in the south were it is much warmer. It takes along time for a log to dry out.

I am glad to see your inerest in logging. It was and still is an interesting industry to study

Joe

[Anonymous]

Logs could arrive at the log pond by rail or by flume. Logs could arrive by rail in several different ways depending on time chosen and how flush is your logging operation. The simplest was logs chained together and dragged by a locomotive. Flat cars, disconnects, skeleton cars and bunk cars were other types. Flat cars were used through all eras, disconnects were discontinued when safety regulations demanded non-manual brakes, skeleton cars were first used with hand brakes, then steam brake, and finally air brakes. Bunk cars came in several flavors and lengths as flat bunk or skeletel bunk. Log removal from flat car was as simple as having a log layed at a diagonal across the rail above flat car height and the logs would be smeared off the cars. Mark Pierce mentions one method using a cable used for flat , disconnect and skeleton. The cable could also be pulled by the locomotive. Loco would position car by unload point, diconnect from train, attach cable and back up. Other popular methods included a steam powered kicker, a super elevated rail (two sets of track, the elevated for unloading cars and a parallel level set for the locomotive) and jill poke. A jill poke was a 2 or 4 spoke merrygoround arrangement. A spoke would interfer with a log, and as the train advanced it would move with the train and progressively pu***he log. Final method was crane that would straddle load, swing over pond and release.
Early power boats would have a single cylinder Atom gas motor attached in conventional method. Earlier methods included rowboats to nudge logs toward loggers burling in the pond.
The 40's is after depression and during the WWII when the industry was recovering. But operations still ranged from small operators (for their time) and big operations with all the bells and whistles.
Lots of options, many available in Walthers, just need to pick the time and money.

[jacon12]

QUOTE: Originally posted by markpierce

A very common method was to have a ramp between the pond the the track or road, with a tall A-frame on the opposite side of track/road, with a set of cables attached to the ramp, and strung under the log load, up to the A-frame, and back down to a donkey or other fixed engine. Tightening the cables would lift and dump the logs onto the ramp so they would roll into the pond. Once the load was dumped, the cables would be detached from the ramp to allow the next loaded log car or track could be placed into the position. A small open boat, usually outboard powered if in the latter half of the 20th century, to jockey logs into position to be pulled into the sawmill. A simple cable system whereby the cable is tied around the end of the log (simply placing a loop around the log using a hook at the cable end) to pull the log up and into the sawmill. Or a continuous chain system that hooked onto the bottom of the log might also be used.

Thanks Mark for the information. If I'm going to have a sawmill I gotta have a pond. If I have a pond I needa....etc. etc. [^]
That's good.
Jarrell

[markpierce]

A very common method was to have a ramp between the pond the the track or road, with a tall A-frame on the opposite side of track/road, with a set of cables attached to the ramp, and strung under the log load, up to the A-frame, and back down to a donkey or other fixed engine. Tightening the cables would lift and dump the logs onto the ramp so they would roll into the pond. Once the load was dumped, the cables would be detached from the ramp to allow the next loaded log car or track could be placed into the position. A small open boat, usually outboard powered if in the latter half of the 20th century, to jockey logs into position to be pulled into the sawmill. A simple cable system whereby the cable is tied around the end of the log (simply placing a loop around the log using a hook at the cable end) to pull the log up and into the sawmill. Or a continuous chain system that hooked onto the bottom of the log might also be used.

[jacon12]

I understand that in logging operations, maybe not all, the timber came in from the logging camp to the mill, where the logs were dumped into a holding pond. In and around 1940, in the U.S., how where the logs moved from the cars to the water and why put them in water
Thanks.
Jarrell
I think I've found the answer to that part and that is to keep them from drying out and splitting.