Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0411Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of a massive number of logs chained together to form a raft to be floated downriver. Above the image "74" is printed, below the image "W20057 - Largest Log Raft Ever Built. Columbia River, Wash." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company Copyright, H. C. White Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Portland, Oregon, London, Eng., Sydney, Aus." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
V20037
LOG RAFT, COLUMBIA RIVER, WASHINGTON
Lumbering is one of the most important industries of the United States. By lumbering is meant the felling, and preparing of wood for buisness purposes, shipbuilding, furniture manufacture, paper making, and so on. The industry is divided into three branches, first, the logging industry, which consists of the felling of the timber, cutting into lengths, and transporting it to the mill; second the saw mill industry, by which the rough logs are changed into beams, joists, boards and laths; and third, the planing mill industry. In the norhtern states and in Canada lumbering is chiefly carried on in the winter.
The modern lumber camp is well organized and equipped with skilled workmen, divided into swampers, roadmakers, choppers, sawyers, loaders and teamsters. River driging is the method used for transporation whnever possible. The logs are taken on sleds over the icy roads to rivers, where they are flated to the mills. They are not floated singly as much as they were in earlier times, but in rafts. This picture shows one of the largest rafts ever built. It contains 65,000 logs, each 125 feet long. WHere river driving is impossible because of the exhaustion of the timber supply near the water courses, temporary railroads are built intot he forests to transport the lgos. In the west, where these lgos are of unusual size, cranes are employed to load the logs on trains.
The timber of Washington is immense in size and of fine quality. Taller trees are found than the giant redwoods of California, but their trunks are much smaller. The yellow pineis the most important, and supplies nearly one-half of the marketable timber.
Copyright by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection