Old Missoula

8 Photo Captions on Page 21 Section C

Men and horses played an important part in western Montana’s growing lumber industry in the early 1900s as wood, coal and gas-burning machines were taking an ever-larger part in getting the huge logs out of the forests to the mills.

Two lumberjacks (at left) stood on their springboards as they felled a giant tamarack about 1908 near Seeley Lake. Springboards were used so the lumberjacks could get above the swell of the butt of the tree which contained a heavy concentration of acids and pitch that played havoc with tools. They had just completed the undercut in the trunk, later sawing the tree from the other side so the giant would drop toward the reader.

Horse skidding (at right) was the method used in hauling logs over short distances. A set of tongs was set in the trunk of the tree and the horses were directed along by the skinner. This team was working in 1916 at MacNamara’s Landing on the Blackfoot River. (Photos courtesy of Anaconda Co. Lumber Department)

A horse logging “show” (at right) of 1912, the term in lumberjack lingo meaning job. Logs are skidded to the loader or log boom and then lifted onto the log train at lower right.

These loggers are preparing for the spring drive around 1906 on Seeley Lake. Logs are piled high during the winter, and during the spring high water the men break down the decks to float the logs through Salmon Lake, then down the Clearwater and Blackfoot rivers to the mill at Bonner.

The log chute (at left) is sending a log hurtling down a mountainside on its way to the mill. The wood trough was kept greased by the “shoot monkey” who also pulled the logs with a team of horses over the flat areas, letting gravity do the work the rest of the way down the hillsides.

This sleigh haul of 1906 holds about 5,500 feet of timber being taken to Seeley Lake to be decked for the spring drive. The “horse skinner” standing next to his team took care of his horses as though they were members of the family. Arising at 4 a.m. each day he fed his horses first thing.

The first Shay wood-burning engine used in 1908 by the Big Blackfoot Milling Co., predecessor of the Anaconda Co. Lumber Department. Log length was 16 feet then, plenty for men and horses to move.

The early Case gasoline tractor is engaged in hauling log trains in the Nine Mile area in 1906. Logs were transported to the railroad landing where wood-burning engines took them to the mill.