Lane County Historian
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Lane County Historian River drive crew assembling with personal gear in final preparations before the Start of a log drive. Lane County Pioneer Museum LANE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Vol. XVIII, No. 2 Eugene, Oregon Summer, 1973 LANE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Mrs. C. A. Huntington, 740 West 13th Street, Eugene, Oregon 97402 President Stuart W. Hurd, Rt. 2, Box 345, Eugene, Oregon 97401 Membership Secretary LANE COUNTY HISTORIAN lnez Long Fortt (Mrs. James 0. Fortt) 1diter 3870 Watkins Lane, Eugene, Oregon 97405 The Lane County Historian is a quarterly publication of the Lane County Historical Society, a non-profit organization. Membership in the Lane County Historical Society includes subscription to the Lane County Historian. Annual dues: $3.00; family membership: $5.00. CONTENTS RIVER DRIVING IN LANE COUNTY 23 By Glenn Mason, Director, Lane County Pioneer Museum C. K. Spaulding's 1904 log drive. Logs were floated about 150 miles from up the Mckenzie River down the Willornette to Oregon City. Lane County Pioneer Museum 22 Kuer TbriuinjincJ.?ane Coun4, By Glenn Mason Introduction: This article should The author is indebted to many have been written at least ten years who helped to contribute to this ago. In a search through Lane manuscript; oral interviews w it h County for men still living who George McCornack and Hallie Hills drove logs down the McKenzie and Huntington, daughter of early Wil- Wi 1 lame t t e rivers, the author lamette River contractor and driver found only two, George McCornack Jasper Hills; an interview with Sid who drove the McKenzie and Mo- Stiers of Lowell, whose relatives hawk, and Henry Mathews, a Wil- drove the Willamette, recorded by lamette River driver. Another man Ron Finne during his research for whom the author had the pleasure his recent movie on old-time log- of meeting w a s Coambe Bolden ging, "Natural Timber Country," who worked on Walters' Long Tom provided new insights. River log drive. The same story For those of us, two or three was heard everywhere, "Oh, you generations removed from the should've talked to old .., he was river-driving era, photographs are an old-time river driver 'round our only means to visualize what it these parts. C o u r s e,he's dead might have been like to observe or now." This sad reply makes it ob- participate in a log drive. Again, vious that we should do all we can our gratitude to the people who to preserve the past through those gave or made available their old still living who have experienced photographs to the Lane County many of the events in our area's Pioneer Museum. Also, private col- history. lections of Louis Folley, Ron Ab- The oral history of first-hand ac- counts of experiences is an urgent rams and Hallie Huntington have and never-ending project. Inexpen- been used to document this story. sive tape-recorders are now avail- Not all the statements in the able and the cost is slight for the story have been footnoted. As the rewards of an interesting tape ses- author found similar references or sion with an old-timer who can re- descriptions of the same e v e n t late the history of an event or area such as the duties of the river drive in Lane County because he had crew, it was felt no footnote was been a part of it. The Lane County necessary. If anyone is interested Pioneer Museum is actively sup- porting an oral history program for in further documentation, read H. the collection of information about J. Cox-'s Random Lengths (Eugene, our local past. For further informa- Oregon, 1949) which has several tion on how anyone can help in sections on local river driving, or this 10 c a 1 oral history program, listen to tape recordings of the first please contact the museum, 740 and second-hand river driving ac- West 13th Avenue, Eugene, Oregon counts on file at the Lane County 97402. Pioneer Museum. 23 If there are errors in the descrip- Information on log driving is lacking for the next twenty years, but by the tions or the various accounts in 1870's, river driving was a common prac- the story, the author takes full re- tice on the McKenzie and Willamette sponsibility; this story is not in- rivers. The Laird brothers were making tended to be a definitive work on big drives from Fall Creek to the Eugene local log driving but the author's City Mill. Capt. N. L. Packard (Eugene Skinner's widow's husband), Ed Packard own interpretation of the period and W. Packard had contracts in 1871, of river driving in Lane County. It 1872, and 1873 to drive "Sugar pine" is just a beginning for history is an logs some fifty miles down the WiIlam on-going process of gathering facts ette to a Springfield mill. J. L. Brumley's mill,situated on the McKenzie River from the past. itis hoped that seven or eight miles north of Eugene, other old-time r i v e r drivers or received logs via the river as early as their relatives, will come forward 1875. About that same period George and contribute their knowledge and Larison was sending logs down the Wil- lamette to B. J. Pengra's mill at Spring- share their old photographs so that field.2 together we can piece together the In 1888 promoter George Melvin Miller exciting era of "River Driving in noted: Lane County." ". that many streams (in Lane * * * * * County) afford excellent facilities for floating or rafting . timber to the With logging trucks zipping along the mills or manufacturers below. In fact, back roads and freeways, itis hard to many million feet are thus rafted visualize that only 70 years ago the rivers down annually, even to thecities of Lane County were the pricipal means many miles below us." of getting logs to the sawmills. At some time or other most of the Water has leen used for transportation streams in Lane County have played as long as man has been on earth. His- a part in a logging operation. Rivers and torically, as wood came to be used for streams have often been dammed for construction it become necessary to cut log storage ponds. Poles, shingle bolts, and saw trees into more manageable and railroad ties have been floated, often sizes. Because timber was not always with the assistance of a series of flood available at the building site, the means dams, down many of the local streams. of transporting logs become a problem. Some rivers even had large full scale The answer in many instances was that log drives. However, when the old timers old standby, natural water power. The speak of THE DRIVES, they are referring first recorded log drive is the Bible's to those on the McKenzie and Willamette reference to cutting the cedars of Leb- rivers and their tributaries during the anon for King Solomon's temple.' height of river activity, 1890-1910. During The use of rivers for transporting logs those twenty years thousands upon thou- in Lane County dates from the very be- sands of logs were carried by the waters ginnings of permanent white settlement. of those two drainages to mills at Mabel, While some pioneers staked out Dona- Marcola, Wendling, Coburg, Springfield, tion Land Claims in areas where tim- Eugene and points north. ber was easily accessible for building This is not to slight in the least the needs, others chose land in the near drives or river drivers on the other treeless valley where good timber was rivers in Lane County. In 1905 the Wal- not readily available. In order to take ters Lumber Company of Elmira had a advantage of thissituation, the enter- drive from the riffle on Noti down the prising Hilyard Shaw, in the early 1850's, Long Tom River. W. C. Walters cele- developed a natural slough which ran brated the securing of the 2,000,000 feet through the northeast section of present- of logs at his Elmira mill by treating day Eugene into a millrace which gave the log drive crew to an oyster supper.4 power to several manufacturing plants, The Siuslaw River has always had the including a sawmill. With only cotton- reputation as one of the best streams wood, alder, and poplar growing along for running logs in Oregon, as it required the banks of the Willamette near Eugene, little or no driving. J. U. Sutherland of Shaw had to go several miles upriver to Florence noted in 1901 that "The water cut 500 good sawlogs which he floated at a logging stage, being very strong and down into his millrace. swift, carries, as a rule, 80-90% (of the 24 logs) down to the booms without any Some of the well known contractors assistance."s River drive crews on the in the late 1890's and the early 1900's Siuslaw were divided into two groups, along the McKenzie were Tom Gilliam one on each side of the river, and rolled and Jack Doyle who drove logs to a the few stranded logs along the edge spot near Armitage Park where the hack into deep water. logs were diverted into a narrow, shal- However good the Siuslaw was for low millrace to supply J.C. Goodale's driving logs, it is the McKenzie-Mohawk (after1900, Booth-Kelly's) mill at Co- and Willamette, at the turn of the cen- burg. The Montgomery brotherscon- tury, with their white water, exposed tracted all up and down the McKenzie- bedrock and shallow stretches with men- Mohawk Rivers for several local lumber acing gravel bars that stimulate the nos- companies.