Not sure where to post these. There is no falling/felling/logging forum here (SO: maybe should have one?) And no, SO is not significant other, its Scotty Overkill The Great One. My ex has some really old and really big Doug fir "stumps" on her property 8-10 ft. DBH and about 20 feet high. They had springboard notches in them spiraling around and up to about 15 feet off the ground. I figured they were left from when the property was horse logged in the 1920s. I also dug up several broken big tooth hand saws there under some mounds of dirt that had formed over them over the decades. Here are some old B&W photos from those times when they used springboards and hand saws to fall trees. These are mostly big old coastal redwoods in California, circa 1915. They felled the old Doug firs and cedars up here the same way. From Humbolt State U. Notch cut in a big one Springboards Horse logging
I like them. It took me awhile to see the horses. I was looking for something bigger. It puts the size of the logs in perspective.
Nice post.... Thanks for sharing.. Those are some Huge trees. Not a lot of stuff that big is logged anymore.
Some horse logging in the Siskiyou Mountains in Southern OR. Note the big "high wheel" logging rig in the background. Those are Ponderosa pines.
Here is an old staged photo of a huge felled and debarked tree. The photo location is not known, but it is likely in the Sierras in CA and that is likely a Giant Sequoia tree. Though it could be a Coastal Redwood in Northern CA or Southern OR. Yes, this is overkill. Can you guess how many cords in this one log? Yes, those are horse teams on top of the log.
Awesome pictures, thanks for sharing them brother! I'd love.to see some pics of those old misery whips that you found! Those guys were MEN.......I can't imagine how hard those guys worked in a single day......all for a measly wage. I read one time where they estimated those old time loggers would consume 10,000 to 15,000 calories + in a single day!!
Model 99 -Produced from January 1954 to November 1963 - 9.82 cubic inch/161cc Powerhead weight only 51 pounds Upgrade from previous version - the 5-49 (5 horsepower,49 pounds) produced from March 1949 to June 1952 - 7.95 cubic inch/130cc.
I have that one in a book by Ralph Andrews - series of 5 books published from 1954 from 1958 with detailed text & hundreds of B & W pics of the old PNW loggers from the 1880's to the 1930's. Books are still in print today,3 of mine are 1st edition hardback.Can be found fairly cheaply whether used or not,not much demand for them.But that makes it easier for us
Lost my great grandfather to an accident in the woods. Seems he was hit by kickback. 55 at that time. He used to off in the woods and be there for weeks on end. Real hard life. High mortality rate.
I have a high respect for those ol-timers. If we had those kind of men and their dedication and drive nowadays, this country wouldn't be in the dire straits that its in right now....
there are pics and videos on the 'Tube.......some amazing processes they used. I'm still awed by seeing some of those old logging pics. Just amazing.
On the yellow log truck there, those are Jeffery or Ponderosa pines. I have seen them that large being logged on the Sonora Pass in the summer.
The largest ones had to be blocked down and hauled to mills. But they managed to skid out some huge ones with high wheels to the RR lines and haul them to the mills by rail. Here is a typical high wheel skidding logs to a RR loader: Here is a typical photo of a rail hauling huge logs:
The RR lines were less typical in the west though. In the coastal mountains, Cascades and Sierras it was more typical to use high wheels to skid logs to a remote mill (usually where a logging camp or mill/logging town was built with several hundred people). The old timers here say that in the old days there was a mill in just about every draw around here (a draw is a stream bed). Here is a rough woods mill for basic log processing: Then they would float the semi-processed logs on a flume to a mill, or to a river where they would be tied into a log raft and floated to the sawdust burner lumber mills. My ex's place in the Coast Range of Southern Oregon had remnants of a narrow gauge RR line that was put in there in the 1920s, and abandoned during the great depression in the 1930s. Before that around 1900 her property was terraformed on a huge scale to create berms and dykes to divert water to feed a log flume that ran along a creek that ran to a larger mill on a river where the logs were processed. Log flumes were used on an industrial scale: Once they got them off the mountain by rail or flume or skid, they were usually transported by river to the big lumber mills on rafts. When I was a kid, logs rafts were still common along the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, with tugs pulling them up and back. I still see them on the Columbia River now and then. This is a logging operation on Big River in Mendocino Co, CA: When I was a kid there were still sawdust burner mills all over, pretty much in every town large or small. There are a few left here and there, but they are becoming rare as they rust or are removed for development. They were fed with logs from the rivers or rail lines. Here is one in Drain OR that was still there a few years ago:
