Sawdust Empire
Sawdust Empire

Author: Robert S. Maxwell

Publisher: Texas A & M University Press

Published: 1983-12-01

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9781585440597

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This first comprehensive story of logging, lumbering, and forest conservation in Texas records the industry’s history from the earliest days of the Republic, when a few isolated operations provided for local needs, through the first four decades of the twentieth century. Supplemented by over one hundred photographs, many never before published, the text re-creates Texas’ heyday as one of the nation’s leading timber producers. At that time, the forested area equaled the state of Indiana. In the words of one visitor, the forest was “like a vast wave that has rolled in upon a level beach . . . creeping forward, thinning out, and finally disappearing, except where, along a river course, it pushes far inland.” The industry’s most significant growth occurred between the end of Reconstruction and the beginnings of World War II, when entrepreneurs from the North, the South, and the East ventured into the vast stands of virgin timber in the Texas Piney Woods. These pioneers, attracted by the great potential fortunes to be made, provided the capital, expertise, and energy that introduced large mills and railroads to Texas lumbering and developed markets for their products—not only in Houston, Dallas, and other Texas cities but also across the United States and throughout the world. Various lumber companies, logging and mill operations, company towns, and the genesis of forest conservation are all featured in the text and illustrations. This account will appeal to historians, conservationists, and general readers interested in the Texas lumber industry and in Texas economic history.

The Lumber Boom of Coastal South Carolina: Nineteenth-Century Shipbuilding and the Devastation of Lowcountry Virgin Forests
The Lumber Boom of Coastal South Carolina: Nineteenth-Century Shipbuilding and the Devastation of Lowcountry Virgin Forests

Author: Robert McAlister

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2013-10-22

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 1625847629

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The virgin forests of longleaf pine, bald cypress and oak that covered much of the South Carolina Lowcountry presented seemingly limitless opportunity for lumbermen. Henry Buck of Maine moved to the South Carolina coast and began shipping lumber back to the Northeast for shipbuilding. He and his family are responsible for building the "Henrietta," the largest wooden ship ever built in the Palmetto State. Buck was followed by lumber barons of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who forever changed the landscape, clearing vast tracts to supply lumber to the Northeast. The devastating environmental legacy of this shipbuilding boom wasn't addressed until 1937, when the International Paper Company opened the largest single paper mill in the world in Georgetown and began replanting hundreds of thousands of acres of trees. Local historian Robert McAlister presents this epic story of the ebb and flow of coastal South Carolina's lumber industry.

Logging and Lumbering in Maine
Logging and Lumbering in Maine

Author: Donald A. Wilson

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738505213

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Known as the Pine Tree State, Maine once led the world in lumber production. It was the first great lumber-producing region, with Bangor at its center. Today, the state has nearly eighteen million acres of timberland, and forest products still make up a major industry. Logging and Lumbering in Maine examines the history from its earliest roots in 1630 to the present, providing a pictorial record of land use and activity in Maine. The state's lumber industry went through several historical periods, beginning with the vast pine and spruce harvests, the organization of major corporate interests, the change from sawlogs to pulpwood, and then to sustained yields, intensive management, and mechanized harvesting. At the beginning, much of the region was inaccessible except by water, so harvesting activities were concentrated on the coast and along the principal rivers. Gradually, as the railroads expanded and roads were constructed into the woods, operations expanded with them and the river systems became vitally important for the transportation of timber out of the woods to the markets downstate. Logging and Lumbering in Maine traces these developments in the industry, taking a close look at the people, places, forests, and machines that made them possible.

Wood Hicks and Bark Peelers
Wood Hicks and Bark Peelers

Author: Ronald E. Ostman

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2016-09-07

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 027108460X

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In Wood Hicks and Bark Peelers, Ronald E. Ostman and Harry Littell draw on the stunning documentary photography of William T. Clarke to tell the story of Pennsylvania’s lumber heyday, a time when loggers serving the needs of a rapidly growing and globalizing country forever altered the dense forests of the state’s northern tier. Discovered in a shed in upstate New York and a barn in Pennsylvania after decades of obscurity, Clarke’s photographs offer an unprecedented view of the logging, lumbering, and wood industries during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They show the great forests in the process of coming down and the trains that hauled away the felled trees and trimmed logs. And they show the workers—cruisers, jobbers, skidders, teamsters, carpenters, swampers, wood hicks, and bark peelers—their camps and workplaces, their families, their communities. The work was demanding and dangerous; the work sites and housing were unsanitary and unsavory. The changes the newly industrialized logging business wrought were immensely important to the nation’s growth at the same time that they were fantastically—and tragically—transformative of the landscape. An extraordinary look at a little-known photographer’s work and the people and industry he documented, this book reveals, in sharp detail, the history of the third phase of lumber in America.

The Archaeology of the Logging Industry
The Archaeology of the Logging Industry

Author: John G. Franzen

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780813066585

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The American lumber industry helped fuel westward expansion and industrial development during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, building logging camps and sawmills?and abandoning them once the trees ran out. In this book, John Franzen surveys archaeological studies of logging sites across the nation, explaining how material evidence found at these locations illustrates key aspects of the American experience during this era. Franzen delves into the technologies used in cutting and processing logs, the environmental impacts of harvesting timber, the daily life of workers and their families, and the social organization of logging communities. He highlights important trends, such as increasing mechanization and standardization, and changes in working and living conditions, especially the food and housing provided by employers. Throughout these studies, which range from Michigan to California, the book provides access to information from unpublished studies not readily available to most researchers. The Archaeology of the Logging Industryalso shows that when archaeologists turn their attention to the recent past, the discipline can be relevant to today?s ecological crises. By creating awareness of the environmental deterioration caused by industrial-scale logging during what some are calling the Anthropocene, archaeology supports the hope that with adequate time for recovery and better global-scale stewardship, the human use of forests might become sustainable. A volume in the series the American Experience in Archaeological Perspective, edited by Michael S. Nassaney

Deep Woods Frontier
Deep Woods Frontier

Author: Theodore J. Karamanski

Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780814320495

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Narrating the history of Michigan's forest industry, Karamanski provides a dynamic study of an important part of the Upper Peninsula's economy.

When the White Pine Was King
When the White Pine Was King

Author: Jerry Apps

Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society

Published: 2020-08-14

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 0870209353

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“From the ring of the ax in the woods, to the scream of the saw blade in the mill, to the founding of many of Wisconsin’s communities, Jerry Apps does an outstanding job bringing Wisconsin’s logging and lumbering heritage to life.”—Kerry P. Bloedorn, director, Rhinelander Pioneer Park Historical Complex For more than half a century, logging, lumber production, and affiliated enterprises in Wisconsin’s Northwoods provided jobs for tens of thousands of Wisconsinites and wealth for many individuals. The industry cut through the lives of nearly every Wisconsin citizen, from an immigrant lumberjack or camp cook in the Chippewa Valley to a Suamico sawmill operator, an Oshkosh factory worker to a Milwaukee banker. When the White Pine Was King tells the stories of the heyday of logging: of lumberjacks and camp cooks, of river drives and deadly log jams, of sawmills and lumber towns and the echo of the ax ringing through the Northwoods as yet another white pine crashed to the ground. He explores the aftermath of the logging era, including efforts to farm the cutover (most of them doomed to fail), successful reforestation work, and the legacy of the lumber and wood products industries, which continue to fuel the state’s economy. Enhanced with dozens of historic photos, When the White Pine Was King transports readers to the lumber boom era and reveals how the lessons learned in the vast northern forestlands continue to shape the region today.

Mills of Humboldt County, 1910-1945
Mills of Humboldt County, 1910-1945

Author: Fortuna Depot Museum Susan J.P. O’Hara and Alex Service

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1467127760

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Sequoia sempervirens, California coastal redwood, was Humboldt County's economic mainstay from the 1850s onwards. By the early 20th century, harvesting "red gold" was the major industry along California's North Coast, with Humboldt at the forefront of the industry. The first half of the 20th century saw technological changes in logging and milling. New uses for redwood included cigar boxes, "presto-logs," and core logs for plywood. The industry began reforestation practices, growing their own seedlings as early as 1907. World War I and the Great Depression impacted the industry, as did activism to preserve the redwoods. In the 1930s, the largest stand of old-growth redwoods was preserved, and the turmoil of the 1935 strike resulted in several strikers being killed in Eureka. This book explores Humboldt's early-20th-century lumber industry and day-to-day realities of life in the mills and woods in an era underrepresented in published logging history.

Logging in Wisconsin
Logging in Wisconsin

Author: Diana L. Peterson

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2017-07-10

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 143966143X

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Logging in Wisconsin explores the 70 years when logging ruled the state, covering the characters who worked in forests and on rivers, the tools they used, and the places where they lived and worked. Wisconsin was the perfect setting for the lumber industry: acres of white pine forests (acquired through treaties with American Indians) and rivers to transport logs to sawmills. From 1840 to 1910, logging literally reshaped the landscape of Wisconsin, providing employment to thousands of workers. The lumber industry attracted businessmen, mills, hotels, and eventually the railroad. This led to the development of many Wisconsin cities, including Eau Claire, Oshkosh, Stevens Point, and Wausau. Rep. Ben Eastman told Congress in 1852 that the Wisconsin forests had enough lumber to supply the United States "for all time to come." Sadly, this was a grossly overestimated belief, and by 1910, the Wisconsin forests had been decimated.

Chinese in the Woods
Chinese in the Woods

Author: Sue Fawn Chung

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2015-09-30

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0252097556

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Though recognized for their work in the mining and railroad industries, the Chinese also played a critical role in the nineteenth-century lumber trade. Sue Fawn Chung continues her acclaimed examination of the impact of Chinese immigrants on the American West by bringing to life the tensions, towns, and lumber camps of the Sierra Nevada during a boom period of economic expansion. Chinese workers labored as woodcutters and flume-herders, lumberjacks and loggers. Exploding the myth of the Chinese as a docile and cheap labor army, Chung shows Chinese laborers earned wages similar to those of non-Asians. Men working as camp cooks, among other jobs, could make even more. At the same time, she draws on archives and archaeology to reconstruct everyday existence, offering evocative portraits of camp living, small town life, personal and work relationships, and the production and technical aspects of a dangerous trade. Chung also explores how Chinese used the legal system to win property and wage rights and how economic and technological change ultimately diminished Chinese participation in the lumber industry. Eye-opening and meticulous, Chinese in the Woods rewrites an important chapter in the history of labor and the American West.