Isochrons of Logging on the Pacific Slope of Oregon, 1890-1940

ISOCHRONS OF LOGGING ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE OF OREGON, 1890-1940 By KENNETH A. ERICKSON University of Oregon Forest products have been Oregon's largest single source of income since 1849, and in 1950 Oregon ranked first in the United States in lumber manufacture. The total forested area of the state in 1949 was some 30 million acres, 26 million of which were classified as commercial forest land.1 The major species are Douglas fir, west of the Cascade Mountains, and ponderosa pine, east of the Cascades.2 The geographical and economic center of the region is the Willamette Valley, an area of farming today but originally one of oak and Douglas fir. In order that the time period should not be so early that it has little significance, or so late that one may lose historical perspective, and in order to include a series of changes and developments during an era of notable growth, the period 1890 to 1940 was selected. Three important developments in 1890 soon revolutionized the logging industry: the use of the cross-cut saw in falling,3 ground-line donkey yarding, and transportation of logs to the mill by railroad. As a result of these changes, the use of horses for skidding and the transportation of logs by stream declined in the 1890's. About 1940, the truck began replacing the railroad and the caterpillar tractor became a competitor of the donkey engine; the following years were marked by an abnormal rise in the number of logging operations and the introduction of various types of modern power equipment. The fifty-year span has been broken into three general periods: 189019001910192019301940 STAGES: Transportation Skidding Loading EARLY I INTERMEDIATEI LAtT water I railroad \ truck ________________dpnkey engine_________; horse I j j \_ tractor I inclined skidI An isochronic map was constructed using the same three time intervals: pre-1900, 1901-1930, and 1931-1940. Map data for these periods proved to be elusive, especially for the initial stage. In 1930 and 1940, the burned areas were included with logged areas and undifferentiated so that the effects of burning may be seen in the pattern of isochrons. No accurate account of the cut and burned areas before 1900 was available. For this early stage, information appearing on the map was interpreted principally from Winther's history of the Northwest4 and Cox's rather popular autobiography.s The latter work was particularly useful in that it mentioned many of the actual areas where logging operations were carried on. 1 Freeman, O. W. and Martin, H. H., The Pacific Northwest ( New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1954), Table 1, p. 225. 2 U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Statistics (Portland, 1934-1940). Douglas fir comprises about 2/3, by volume, of the state total of saw timber on commercial forest land. 3 The term "falling" is in common usage in Oregon, rather than "felling." * Winther, O. O., The Great Northwest (New York, Knopf, 1952). 5 Cox, H. J., Random Lengths (Eugene, Shelton-Turnbill-Fuller Co., 1949). 19 The iso-line for 1930 used tax delinquent private as well as county-owned land as Ilie guide for logged ureas." At that time it was fairly general practice' for the logging companies· to allow the cutovcr land to revert to the counties for taxes. Therefore this method provided an adequate measure of the deforested area. The 1940 line was the simplest to map because the cut and burned areas in the individual counties were mapped by the U.S. Forest Service about 1940.7 The Early Stage, 1890-1900 In the decade 1890-1900 the use of the tractor, log truck, and high-lead yarding was unknown, while the railroad and donkey engine were just entering upon the scene. Hence, the river and the horse were the most important types of transportation from the woods to the sawmill. There were two distinct types of loggers at the time, each concerned with a separate phase of operation. To the woods logger fell the job of falling and bucking the logs, a job which was carried on throughout most of the year. At times the woods logger owned a horse which...