 |
| Log Raft at Winona in 1898 |
There are few places where you can walk the kind of forests that covered Northern Minnesota 150 years ago. Giant white pines rose to 200 feet. When Minnesota became a state, more than half its land was in deep shade.
Though vast, the great North Woods weren't limitless. By the turn of the century, Minnesota timber was being marketed from New York to Denver. The expanding frontier needed wood and 30,000 lumberjacks were doing their best to supply it. Timber was far and away the biggest industry in the state, and it changed the very landscape we live in.
The postcard from the 1910s to the right shows the fire monument at Hinckley, Minnesota. The devastation left behind by logging in the 1890s resulted in this fire which killed 413. It has an impact on the environmental movement:The Hinckley fire ... was front-page [and] articles appeared with grim pencil drawings depicting oxidized bodies amid smoking ruins. It also helped arouse a national debate over how forests should be managed. Early conservationists, including Sierra Club founder John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, began to argue for federal regulation of timber.
I don't know enough about how tow barges work to say this with 100% certainty, but I believe the barge at the end of this raft is pushing this log raft. Which means that it is headed downstream. Perhaps on its way to Chicago. A remnant of a swing bridge in Winona survived into the modern era: click here to see a photo. You can also click here to see the bridge along with other bridges. Only one of these bridges survives as a complete span now. But this one was closed temporarily for repairs in the wake of the famous Minneapolis bridge collapse upriver.
That's how they logged on in 1898.
5 comments:
Interesting era. Much of the logs
passing Winona came from the WI
side, even as the pineries there
became depleted. St. Croix Falls/Taylor Falls was a big collection area (I'm thinking the
Hinkley area floated theirs down
the Snake R. during the Spring floods. Slightly later, much MN
timber was fed down the Mississippi
and presumably its upper tributaries; even later Minnesota
had over 5000 miles of lumber railroads. Back in the day, I canoed most of the rivers in the area, and there were still large
old logs driven into the bottom for
wing dams and raft guides. (hint-
never canoe in the dark cuz you will hit one of the darn things)
Did some of the logs come down the Chippewa River, also?
In that specific area, I've only canoed the "lake" that is near Trempealeau Mountain.
What an interesting and sad postcard.
I don't think I have ever seen a tall pine tree. Our tall trees are firs and redwoods. I think the kind of pines we have are different.
You can still see barges pushing logs on the Columbia River up here. By where I used to live, there is a big cove that I am sure was man made where they can leave log rafts for whatever reason, though it does not happen often these days.
I think there is so much fascinating history in our waterways and forests. I had no idea about this fire, but it sounds horrid. I'm glad that something good came of it eventually. But so sad.
There are some isolated tiny pockets of remaining old growth found scattered in a very few places in the upper Midwest now.
You know who's still logging like CRAZY and who is CLEAR-cutting like crazy?
BC, in CANADA.
BZ
Post a Comment