Steam & Excursion > A Big Logging Outfit Brings In It's Biggest Tree -1929!

The Oregon Coast Range was noted for some of the largest fir trees in the world when steam logging was in full swing in the 1920's. However, there were some giants among these huge specimens that stood out from the rest.

The Oregon-American Lumber Co. of Vernonia, Oregon used their rail operation to bring in some of these huge fir trees found in this region. In August 1929 they brought in the largest of these trees logged to date. This monster was 10 feet in diameter at the ground and 8 1/2 feet in diameter at breast height.

Her age was amazing at 838 years old. She had survived many large fires in the centuries she stood. She was already 100 feet tall and 124 years old when the Magna Carta was signed. She was 2-feet in diameter at the stump when Columbus discovered America.

She was so large that she was cut in to 5 large logs and hauled into Vernonia in a train dedicated to her. Her 5 logs were 160-feet long in total and scaled to 44,049 board feet!

The company was so proud of this huge tree they brought down a photographer to the log dump when she arrived behind 2-6-2 #105 so this event could be recorded. Here is what she looked like.

The tree made the news of the time being featured in a New York Times article. Pieces of the tree were preserved in the "American Goodwill Table" that contained wood from several famous sources such as the USS Constitution, the White House, etc.

In a small way, this monarch of the forest still lives on.


Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/14 07:20 by LoggerHogger.

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I bet that thing wore out several men cutting it down.

Sad to see such a magnificent tree cut down. Glad we think differently about "harvesting" these monarch today.

Just big weeds. Next to a SD 45 in run 8, the sound of a chainsaw across the mountains on a cool crisp morning is pretty good too.
Roger Beckett

1939dutchman Wrote:
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> Sad to see such a magnificent tree cut down. Glad
> we think differently about "harvesting" these
> monarch today.


We still need to grow and harvest these monsters to provide bridge stringers and caps for maintaining the many wood trestles still in use.

Dick Samuels

And just for grins, try using one of those two-man crosscut (aka x-cut) saws shown above for felling and bucking. There is a good reason why they were also known as "misery whips"!! Those were not "the good old days"!! But they were lighter than the first chain saws!! Fifty plus years ago when I was an undergrad forestry student, they made us use x-cut saws and axes for the first week of field studies. I had used one before that but other classmates had only seen them in pictures!! That was a learning experience in cooperation!!

Bruce

It probably caused several tidal waves when they were dropped into the log pond.

Where was the mill located?

Sphogger

The mill was in Vernonia, Oregon.

Martin

But look-no "beer guts" on the guys demonstrating the saw! Thanks for the post. Sad that they cut it down, but glad they had the foresight to get the photographer. Thanks for sharing.

AJ

A4' di oak tree makes a loud bang when it hits the ground WOW wwwweeeeee I wish I could fell a big one like that.

Yes it makes you wonder what came out of the Appalachian forests back in the day. The way I. Understand it, much of Appalachia was harvested and as beautiful as those mountains are today, the forests are all pretty young.

As to this photo, it is indeed sad to see such a fine living thing cut down so thoughtlessly. The good news is that there are many forests protected from logging now and trees do tend to grow back - even if it takes 800 years to reach the size of this one.

A little more context.

Much of Appalachia has been harvested 3-4 times in the 250 years man has been in those mountains. A great deal "unspoiled wilderness" bears no resemblance to what it looked like in the 17th or 18th century.

P Wrote:
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> Yes it makes you wonder what came out of the
> Appalachian forests back in the day. The way I.
> Understand it, much of Appalachia was harvested
> and as beautiful as those mountains are today, the
> forests are all pretty young.
>
> As to this photo, it is indeed sad to see such a
> fine living thing cut down so thoughtlessly. The
> good news is that there are many forests protected
> from logging now and trees do tend to grow back -
> even if it takes 800 years to reach the size of
> this one.

Steve Krause
Chillicothe, IL

P Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes it makes you wonder what came out of the
> Appalachian forests back in the day. The way I.
> Understand it, much of Appalachia was harvested
> and as beautiful as those mountains are today, the
> forests are all pretty young.
>
> As to this photo, it is indeed sad to see such a
> fine living thing cut down so thoughtlessly. The
> good news is that there are many forests protected
> from logging now and trees do tend to grow back -
> even if it takes 800 years to reach the size of
> this one.
And just how do you think that you could build houses and such without using the forests properly liked they have been for years before the wakos shut down loggin? They have regrown many times over the years to provide more timber for homes and other uses. That is what you do not understand and many were regrown without any replanting like they do now. Its really too bad that logging has been shut down in many places because of those who do not understand what has been going on for years.

What? you mean trees can GROW BY THEMSELVES? Are you SERIOUS? Trees don't just spring out of the dirt! Once they are DEAD they are DEAD FOREVER! Men are HORRIBLE to trees! Just look at all that poisonous CO2 that we are making that is killing the forests left and right!

Or so I've been told by the BBC.

Trees are a renewable resource. Forests have been harvested either by humankind or by Mother Nature for centuries. As far as the eastern USA forests, they are probably at least 3rd or 4th growth stands with very few exceptions since settlement by the Europeans in the 1600s. There are still living trees in the US that greatly predate that occurrence -- the sequoias and redwoods in Calfornia, some Doug fir in the Coastal Range of the PNW, some baldcypress in the southeastern swamps and at least one eastern red cedar in the Missouri Ozarks. To be sure, some of these are/were located in spots that were economically or physically inaccessible to loggers. While many trees reproduce from seeds, others will reproduce from stump sprouts. Many species need fire to regenerate and we have suppressed wildfire to the detriment of these species. Some species are naturally long-lived while others naturally die out after a relatively short life span. For an exercise in frustration, try to get folks to agree on what is an "old growth" forest. My wife and I were able to visit Yosemite National Park and th surrounding forests a few years ago. For many years I taught (among other courses) logging and sawmilling at colleges and universities. Part of me truly appreciates seeing the sequoias in the wild while another part of me (the logger!) would have really loved to have been on the end of a misery whip (aka two-man crosscut saw) felling one of those Goliaths of the woods!

Bruce (retired forestry prof)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/14 18:03 by BCutter.