Vintage logging – Big trees – WoodchuckCanuck.com

Each Saturday morning I review 10 vintage logging, forestry and saw milling photos. This week’s review of vintage logging shows some of the big trees that loomed in the forest.

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1924-Chopping down Western Red Cedar – Brooks-Scanlon-O’Brien Company Limited.

White and Sugar Pine timber. Grove of White and Sugar Pine timber near Lasco Camp which was located about 7 or 8 miles north of Westwood, Lassen County, CA.
Rights Information: Feb 28 2019 Special permission granted by the owning institution, California State University, Chico, CA, US, to WoodchuckCanuck.com, for use of this image for historical logging special collection review. Source: cdlib.org

The loggers who cut down trees were called fallers. Using their axes, they cut notches in the trunk for springboards. They then stood on the springboards and felled the tree with a crosscut saw. Cutting above ground level was easier because the trunk was narrower, and there was less pitch to gum up the saws. Even so, it might take two days of hard work to cut down a large tree.

Fallers and scaler.

1918 Warren Spruce Co., Portland Oregon October

Big tree 9 feet at cut, over 20 feet at ground, Camp 3-A, near Toledo, Oregon.

1924 48 year old redwood on Vista Avenue, Portland, Oregon.

Planted 1875 52 inch diameter at breast height + 100′ in height. July 5, 1924.
Rights Information: Feb 28 2019 Special permission granted by the owning institution, California State University, Chico, CA, US, to WoodchuckCanuck.com, for use of this image for historical logging special collection review. Source: cdlib.org

Timber falling first offense. Two men with axes chopping down a tree near Lasco Camp which was located about 7 or 8 miles north of Westwood, Lassen Co., CA.

Rights Information: Feb 28 2019 Special permission granted by the owning institution, California State University, Chico, CA, US, to WoodchuckCanuck.com, for use of this image for historical logging special collection review. Source: cdlib.org