The Whole History of Logging in Oregon

At Oregon's Collier Lake State Park there is a fine campground with full hookups for just $22 a night.

Across the highway is the Collier Museum of Forestry.

This museum was established to record the history of logging, since the early days and continuing today, a vital part of the State of Oregon. The museum claims to have the largest and most complete collection of logging equipment and memorabilia in the country, and after walking through it for a couple of hours, we have no reason to doubt their claim. All the tools are there, from the double-bitted falling axes to the one man bucksaw and the two man handsaws up through some of huge mechanical equipment that made logging much less labor intensive.

The first stop is the visitor center, where we learned about penny pinching on meals (from an article in The Timberman from November, 1921): "A 100 man camp will serve about 9000 meals a month; 90,000 meals in 10 months at 35 cents a meal amounts to $31,300. Is that amount of money worth watching? For only 100 men a saving of but one cent per meal in ten months would amount to nearly $1000."

And how much food would a logger eat? Since their work would use up to 8000 calories a day, they ate a lot! Here's a comparison of a logger's breakfast in 1921 and what we might have today:

Also in the visitor center:

But the real stuff is outdoors. We'll show you a few pictures here, but urge you to see the full show in our 2013 Collier Logging web album.

They have imported actual cabins from around the state, including, of course, a padlocked outhouse.

A second outhouse was a two-holer.

A logger's life was rugged!

But along came progress -- the 10 foot high wheel made it immensely easier and faster for horses and later big tractors to skid logs out. This principle was in use for nearly a century in the Oregon forests.

One sign noted that these big wheels had no brakes; on steep downslopes, the horses had to outrun the load!

The big mechanical improvements made a huge difference.

The blacksmith shop was well represented.

The machine on the left was a lard press, also sometimes used to press apple cider. Tasty combination?

This is only a taste of the history of logging in Oregon. More can be found in that web album we mentioned earlier.

A very educational day in ... Our Life on Wheels.