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| Volume XXXV, Number 2 Summer, 2000 |
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| The Timber Industry and Raymond
Mills; 1941-1967
Cover Photograph: Gasoline and diesel-powered equipment started replacing steam in the 1930s. By the 1950s, when this photo was taken, they were in common use. The logging of isolated second growth tree stands provided raw material for numerous 2 x 4 stud mills in Pacific county after WWII. Courtesy of C. Noyeg. |
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| The
Sou'wester |
| ISSN #0038-4984
Copyright, 2000, by the Pacific County Historical Society. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the Society's Editorial Board. The Sou'wester is a quarterly publication of the Pacific
County Historical Society and Museum. The Pacific County Historical
Society is a non-profit organization in South Bend, Washington.
In addition to the Sou'wester, the Society publishes a monthly newsletter for its members and operates the Pacific County Historical Society Museum in South Bend, Washington. Annual membership fees include Society membership and
a subscription to the Sou'wester.
Design and pre-press production by Charles B. Summers, South Bend, Washington. |
| The
Sou'wester Spring Issue, 2000
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| Introduction
The coastal forests of the Pacific Northwest knew only gradual changes from the end of the last Ice Age until about 150 years ago. During historic times these stands of ancient hemlock, spruce, and cedar trees have given way to much younger growth. Most areas of Pacific County are now on their third cutting and with proper management can be expected to produce a profitable crop for many years to come. The human story of how the forests of Pacific County were cut and turned into a marketable product reveals much about human nature in general as well as specific characters. Occasionally one of these people decides to commit their experiences to paper. We are the lucky beneficiaries of one such account. In this issue of The Sou'wester we present part two of Ned Needham's autobiography. During the period from WWII until his retirement Ned worked in the mills and woods of Willapa Harbor. The words and opinions expressed here are Ned's own. The only part we left out was his extensive descriptions of traveling around the United States after his retirement. |
Ned Needham, May 14th, 1902 - 1995 |
| While Ned certainly enjoyed the freedom of
his retirement years the Society's focus is on the history of Pacific County.
A complete, unedited transcription of Ned's story will be available in
the Society's archives.
As this issue of The Sou'wester goes to press we have stories on Ben Cheney and the Hill Summer Camp in Long Beach lined up for later this year. With the continued support of our loyal members and supporters, the Society and its publications will continue to grow and improve. |
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| My Life and Times: Part Two
by Ned Needham The Raymond Mills, 1941-1967
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Weyerhaeuser employees with "E" flag for their contribution to the war effort by making knives from worn-out saw blades from the Raymond sawmill. From left to right: Watson Sturgill, Goe Looney, Vernon "Tiny" Dunning, J.B. Russell, and Paul Richard Brown. Photo courtesy of Elaine Alexander. |
| The liquor store did not open
until five o’clock, and that made for long lines when we got off work.
I think I helped change that. I tangled with the woman running the
place and told her, if she would open the store earlier, she would not
have the line up of people just getting off work. Soon after the
store opened at two o’clock. But it was like the cigarettes—you could
only buy the brand they were selling that day. In order to get around
gas rationing, the crew bought two trucks. We then left our cars
in town and rode the trucks to work.
In 1942, Case’s stud mill (later to become Twin Harbors Mill A), where I had asked for a sawing job, came looking for me. They offered me more money than I was getting from the logging outfit, which was about to move anyway, and further out of town. I took the job, which was close to home, and worked there for eleven years. I still had my seven-day week, and I could not seem to get away from the repair work. With the war on, I don’t know which was worse—the rationing or the shortages, which lasted long after the war was over. I did manage to get a fairly good car, due to some under the table dealing with my brother-in-law. This got me some dirty looks from my friends. Refrigerators, as far as new ones were concerned, you could forget it! We did finally find a second-hand one. |
| From 1942 to 1947, I never had
a vacation—I had time off only when I was in the hospital or unable to
work. When I did get a vacation, I had to declare myself sick and
take it. Things were changing fast now. We had withholding
for income tax and no more hospital tickets. The cost of everything
was going out of sight. We tried health and accident insurance, but
could not find anything we could afford. It was never in reach in
the timber industry—too many deaths and accidents. Several companies
tried but could not make it work. They would pay one or two claims
and then cancel you out.
During these years our daughter’s health got worse. For four and a half years we took her to Tacoma every two weeks. This was done mostly by my wife. I think we knew every asthma and skin doctor from Vancouver B. C. to California. One year we got $134 dollars back on our income tax. A friend said how lucky we were. I said I sure was—I only had to show $1100 in doctor bills! There was no mileage or meal allowance. Post War Years At Twin Harbors Mill A
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| I never was a good union man,
because they never got me as much as I could get on my own. They
lied to us as much as the company did. I served as shop steward for
a while and spent much of my time trying to explain seniority to the crew.
They had trouble understanding that they could not have any job just because
you worked there longer than someone else. Seniority was only good
when the company was laying off men, and then you had to be able to do
the job you were assigned to.
We had several wildcat strikes, and I wanted to know how the union could back them, but never did get any real answer. The union also told us that the job set the pay rate, but the company had so-called merit men who got well above the pay scale for that particular job. When I tried to do something about this, the union said not to stir things up as everything was going smooth. I will say that the only time I needed the union, they did back me up. A drunken superintendent laid me off when I had seniority over five or six men. The union called a meeting with the mill boss and the superintendent. When asked what job I wanted, I said I would take the job of the last man hired. This was not what the superintendent wanted. This man was doing work on the side for him and also buying his whiskey. He questioned my being able to handle the job, but the mill boss told him I could handle any job in the mill, even his. About this time, I began to notice the apple polishers and the ones who would stab you in the back. I guess I was sort of a rebel since I would not go along with the crowd. Some of the crew wanted to buy Christmas presents for the boss and the office girl, but I said no way was I going to donate. Then some of the crew wanted 100% sign-up for war bonds so they could fly a flag over the mill. I would not go for this either. I knew there were some men who could not afford to do this. I told them I would go along on payday and buy as many bonds as they did, but I could not see how flying a flag over the mill made us any more patriotic. At this time there was a real good tie mill running that I would have liked to have sawed in. It cut almost twice as much as any of the other mills. The owner came to see me and offered me almost twice the pay I was making. I told him I was froze on the job. He wanted to know if it was alright if he tried to get me released. I said to go ahead, but he came back and told me they would not let me go. I never did find out if I was as good as I thought I was. Frustrating Working Conditions
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Oregon Mail steamship at the Port Dock in Raymond, circa 1946. Note the small log raft in the foreground. PCHS #1995.80.3109, Antilla and Kolcz collection. |
| One other incident that happened
about this time was something that never happened to me before or since
or to anybody else that I’ve ever heard of. The company took one
of their men from the shingle mill, which had shut down, and put him to
work with me. He would not black out, but he would blank out, I guess
you would call it. You could yell at him as loud as you could, but
he would just stare at you without seeing you. Sometimes he would
just walk off. I would whistle for the millwright or chaser as we
called them, since they had to answer the whistle. One time he went
out of the mill and was trying to start my car when they caught up with
him. We tried to get the boss to get him off the job, but the boss
seemed to think it was all my fault and wouldn’t do anything. I went
to the union and they did nothing, so I went to the office, and they did
nothing. Then I told them I was going to call in the state, which
I did. They came and gave the company so many days to get the man
off the job, which the company never did. One time he walked off
and when the chaser found him he was talking with the boss, so the chaser
never said anything. We all sat around and waited. After awhile
the boss showed up and wanted to know what was the matter, were we broke
down? It was all settled finally when Olympic Hardwood Mill B was
shut down for good in 1953.
I believe during this period was the last time a raise in wages was across the board instead of a percentage raise. This was one of the worst things that happened to the common labor man. This meant the little guy got further behind, and it is still going that way with no change in sight. But I guess it has always been that way. When the mill shut down permanently in 1953 everything changed rather suddenly. I had to do some rather hard thinking. At 51 years-old you don’t just run out and get another job, even in those days. My home was all finished by now and I had no debts. I couldn’t see leaving the locality or moving and trying to keep two places. The family was grown and the wife was working, so I was able to get a lower paying job with the same company in their other mill. I had to work nights at Olympic Hard wood Mill #2 to start, which I did not care for. The money part did not bother me as we did not need as much income to have a fairly good living. After some time the company shut the night shift down, and I barely hung on to get on watching and oiling nights. I took the 12:00 midnight to 8:00 in the morning shift. That way I came home and went to bed, and my wife went to work, so we didn’t bother each other. It also gave us evenings to go to a show or ballgame. In 1954, everything went on strike for 84 days. What a difference from then and now. We had two pickets and weren’t supposed to use any force to try to stop anyone. There never was anyone to stop, as the company never tried to break the strike. In those days there was no strike fund, but some other unions did send some help, so some of the most needy got some help. |
Milwaukee Road locomotive #1261 at the Twin Harbors Hardwood Mill B in Raymond, circa 1950. The log pond for Mill B was connected to the Willapa River's North Fork by a dredged canal. The 8th Street Park and boat launch now occupy this site. PCHS #2000.28.14, courtesy of the Dee Morton Collection. |
| From then until I retired nothing
very exciting happened. It was the same old drag day after day.
I did notice the dirty little tricks used by the company and crew to get
rid of anyone they didn’t want, or the backscratching by some one to get
a few favors from the bosses.
I also could not see how management made a go of things. The superintendent was an alcoholic, and I guess the best he did was stay away from the place. The man over him was also a boozer and a women chaser. The mill boss was a good man as far as knowing how to run the operation. The crew as a whole was better than average. I had noticed for years that management, as a rule, were not hired on their ability but by who they were related to or who they knew. When the company wanted to change or add something new to the mill, they would hire some engineering firm with their slide rules to draw up the plans. In many cases the whole thing would have to be rebuilt after it was installed. If they would have talked to the men who were going to run it, they could have saved time and money. I guess they figured a man who worked for wages didn’t know anything. I still was not able to get away from repair work and overtime as I got older. I did not want it! The company kept adding new machines to up production, but they didn’t always work. But it was their money. The barker and chipper were a good idea as they took the strain off the burner as well as the profit they made for the chips. The log gang was fairly successful, but up to the claims of the engineers. Changing Methods And Equipment
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 PCHS #1995.80.3104, Antilla and Kolcz collection. |
| The electrician drew a diagram
of the control panel and told me to take it home and study it and then
tell him what I wanted changed. There were 26 buttons and levers
and we only had to change a couple and add one that would hide the whole
panel.
When the mill shut down to install this machine I took off for a vacation. When I got back and went to find out when the mill would be ready to start up again, the first thing I heard was, “where were you? You were supposed to work.” I told them no one said anything to me about working. The boss said he forgot to tell me! As I said before I doubt if all this was worth what it cost to put in. There had to be a filing room built and two more filers and a grinding machine. When operations began, their company sawyer crowded the saws so hard that the lumber came out crooked and would not roll down the rollers. Also because of the crowding, he tore up five saws in the first six weeks. That kept me awake when a saw flew to pieces six or seven feet in front of me. But even with this, nothing was said to slow him down. The company was all for quantity and not for quality. To stop the saws from breaking the company bought heavier saws and put more tension on them. None of these broke, but they kept filers busy welding cracks. During this time three safety glasses were broke right in front of my face. When the last one broke, they couldn’t get another one right away. They wanted me to work without any, but I told them no way. I told the boss if he wanted to work there go ahead. They did not want to shut the mill down, so they asked me what to do. I told them to put up a piece of metal until they could get another glass. I also told them to hang the next piece of glass so that it would give. That one was still there when I retired. The boss suggested that I take a picaroon and beat the sawyer over the head with it. I asked him why he didn’t do it, as all I would get was fired! It was getting so at my age I was running out of options, because I was too old to quit and find another job. I think I had finally learned that you can only butt your head against the wall so long before you realize the wall is going to outlast your head! From now on I was just trying to hang on until I retired. Most of the crew did not want to retire, but I was just counting the days. At that time we had to retire at 65. The boss asked me if I really wanted to retire and I said yes. If you did not have it made by then, you where never going to make it. If you had ten years left and able to do the things you wanted to, you were one of the lucky ones. As I got older the less I wanted overtime, since the days seemed to get longer and the winters colder. The younger workers wanted more overtime, travel time, and more paid holidays. So they were ending up with less leisure time than if they were working an eight hour day. |
| There were three things I was
sure glad to get rid of— the alarm clock, the lunch pail, and punching
a time clock. By now I was counting the days until I could get out
of the rat race. It was getting so that if you had a good month,
the deducts got 25% before you got to see any of your pay. Some things
I may have helped change, but one person could not do much, or maybe I
didn’t try hard enough. Anyway it was now up to the ones that were left.
Management Tricks
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 In order to help the reader understand Ned's story, only the companies where Ned worked during the 1940s and 1950s are shown here. |
| Timber Market Boom And Bust
Now about this time the log export to Japan began which changed the whole logging and selling business. Sorting yards and dry landings sprang up all over. The companies now had their own cruisers and were buying timber by the lot instead of stumpage by the thousand. I never knew a cruise to run under, and usually they ran double. Now the race was on. The company’s bidding prices were sky high, and they were paying more for stumpage than the lumber sold for. Japanese resale was much higher than ours, because they did not waste as much as we did. During the next few years, the mills priced themselves out the domestic market. Housing costs went through the roof and opened the door for Canadian lumber and shingles to move in, because all their lumber was controlled by the government and prices were held down. This also meant the end of water shipments from Willapa Harbor, since ships could not take a full load of logs from here. It also ended the small towboat as logs stopped moving by water. This was really the beginning to the downturn of the timber business though it took several years for it to really hit. Companies that had paid too much for timber during the boom got caught when the market went bad. Some of them went bankrupt. Retirement
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| Logging Changes in My Time
Much of Smith Creek and the Willapa Valley was logged with bull teams, which was a little before my time, though some of my relatives were involved in it. I never saw a Dolbeer donkey engine but knew about them. My first memory of a logging camp was a skidroad show on the South Fork of the Willapa near the head of tidewater near where Raymond gets its water. I don’t remember too much of that as I was only a little over three years old. We moved from there to Naselle where my stepfather and his partner were hand logging on the South Fork of the Naselle River. That was the hard way of logging. They fell the timber along the river bank and rolled and pushed the logs into the river with jack screws, pry poles, and lots of sweat. I saw horse and capstan logging and later horse team logging. |
Cat logging to the landing with a gasoline donkey to load the truck. State of the art operation for gypo (contract) loggers in the 1940s. PCSH #10-12-70-2C, from Dora B. Ellis. |
Moving the "grabs" and other skid road hardware back to the woods in a "dugout." Riding the dugout or "pig" was easier than walking. PCHS #11-25-70-1(5) |
| All logging at this time was
water oriented. The Naselle River had a large holding boom where
all the logs from upriver were caught and held until they could be sorted
and rafted according to brands. The upper river used splash dams
to get their logs down. The rafting ground could close the river
with a gap stick when a log drive was on.
There was beginning to be some railroad logging, but they dumped their logs into the water to be towed to the mills. The first railroad lines were not safe, as they had hand brakes, link couplers, quite a few runaways, and could not go up much of a grade. One engineer told me he had several places picked out to jump if he had a runaway, but said when it happened he couldn’t find one of them! When I was four years old we lived in a floathouse on Long Island with another family and the two logged spruce with a horse and capstan. Later we all moved up the Naselle to Isaiah’s Slough where there was a logging camp with a steam donkey. It was a nine by ten wide face that would spool around 1300 feet of one-inch line. It was called a roader as it hauled logs on a pole road. Chokers were not in use yet so they used grabs. There was a dugout that was used to get the grabs back to the woods. This camp also had a ten by twelve yarder, which was a big machine in those days. This camp logged right into the water and did their rafting. The tug came with an empty set of boom sticks, left them, and then took the full raft to the mill. There were numerous tugs that did nothing but tow logs. By now the logger had a machine that would move anything in the woods. The pole road was going out, high leads were coming in. By the way, high leading was the most wasteful method of logging. Skylines were also being used. Now came the idea that is still in use—bigger is better. Bigger machines, some with extension fire boxes that took four-foot wood and made higher steam pressure. If they kept up steam, they went to oil rigs. Then came the Ledgerwoods, which moved on rails and could log two sides and load at the same time. Editor’s Note: To the editor’s knowledge, the only Ledgerwood yarder used in Pacific County was one owned by Crown Zellerbach. It supplied logs to their rail line, which dumped at Cathlamet, Washington. Trucks and railroads were not keeping up. Trucks were still chain driven, had solid tires, hand brakes, and a speed of about fifteen miles per hour. The trains were not much better as they still did not have air brakes. |
Moving two veneer blocks by truck in the early 20th century. These trucks had very little horsepower and depended on low gearing to clumb hills. Poor brakes, hard rubber tires, and plank roads made loaded trips down hill expecially dangerous. PCHS #10-3-80-1(24) |
Ground lead yarding with a "grab" instead of a choker "bell." The grab is located next to the head of the second man from the right. PCHS #4-16-69-1(35), from C. A. Soule. |
| All logs were still going to
water. There were log dumps all over the county—Naselle, Bear River,
Nemah, Cedar River, North River, and two in the city of Raymond, one on
Ellis Lagoon at Cherry Street and the other at the end of First Street.
These were private dumps served by the Northern Pacific Railroad.
As the 1920’s came in, the trend in bigger machines began to die out and reverted back to smaller and faster machines, narrow drums, and two speeds. Some loggers who had gone along with bigger is better went broke. The Sunset Timber Company had a logging railroad up Mill Creek and had used their last man-made pond by 1916. They then moved to Firdale at the end of the county road. From there they had the old-time camps with bunk and cook houses, and the men lived in camp. Some of them only came to town once a month. When the Milwaukee Road came in, they took over this logging railroad and hauled logs to the Sunset dump on the Willapa River outside of Raymond. The Northern Pacific had a crossover line to this dump at east Raymond, so a good many logs came in this way, to be rafted and towed to the mills. Trucks were not very practical for moving logs as yet, and there was not much in the way of roads to haul on anyway and everything was by water. Dry landings were still years away. The road to the Nemah was opened in the summer of 1916. The road to Long Beach in 1922 with a dinky ferry on the Naselle. Logging was going through many changes by now. They were beginning to log small timber called second growth. It was still all moved to water. Even by rail it went to water to get to the mills. I never worked on the rigging for any outfit of any size. But, in 1926, I felled timber for one. They logged into a man-made pond. They ran three sides, which meant three donkeys and a loading donkey. They were still using solid tire trucks, loading out of the pond and hauling only three or four miles, and then dumping in the river. As it was a private road, they had no weight restrictions and did not even have to be licensed. To show how things had changed, fallers had to carry two saws, an eight-foot and a ten-foot, as the timber ran from 18 inches to as much as 12 feet. Small timber was still not wanted very much but had to be taken out. Our orders were to fall to the lead even if we broke every tree, because if we felled it cross lead, they would break every tree getting it out. You had better not break many old growth if you wanted to keep your job, unless you had a good excuse. |
The Compton railroad tie mill near Morton, Washington. Note the standing timber in the background. Temporary mills like this, powered by gasoline or diesel engines, could be located almost anywhere. In this case the mill was halfway up a mountainside where the trees could be felled close by. Many of these mills operatoed without the benefit of shelter. A roof was certainly welcome, however, during the rainy winter. Photo from the Mabel Compton collection, courtesy of Caroll LaGra. |
| Just before the crash in 1929,
tie mills began to move into Pacific County. I don’t know why, unless
it was because timber that was easy to get around Morton was running out.
Morton country was where most of the tie mills came from. You needed
a different kind of logging machine, so the gas donkey came into use.
The best at that time was a Fordson tractor with a set of M.A.C. drums.
It had a 3/4-inch main line with a 3/8-inch haulback, would log up to 1000
feet, and would handle a whole second growth tree. Then, of course,
came the bigger gas donkeys that would handle any size tree, but they did
not last long and went out when diesel power came.
The tie mill used every type of known logging—horses, cats (bulldozers) and donkeys. I only know of one steam donkey and that was a contract job. Ford motor began building extension wheels on their tractors, hung a drum on the front end, and then added two more drums to the front. After that, they added cat tracks, a two-speed transmission on the drums, and different sprockets. It would spool six or seven hundred feet of 3/4-inch line and eleven or twelve hundred feet of 3/8-inch of haulback. I ran the only one I ever saw work. You could high lead with it or skid on the ground if the ground was not too rough. We also used it to load. It did well if you did not try to yard over 400 feet. It was a handy machine for other uses. Rented out, I ran it clearing road right of way, and it was used as a hoist for raising the power line towers on the Aberdeen highway, as the road was not finished at that time. It could go almost anywhere, even up a cut bank, run the line out, put both tracks in gear, and use the front drum to help pull. In September of 1930, the Aberdeen road opened and the pulp mill in Hoquiam was buying hemlock barked and split. So there was a market for hemlock. Any one with an axe, saw, and a wedge could go to work. He couldn’t make much money, but he would keep from starving. The plywood business was also getting underway, and this called for a different kind of logging. This was when the big tractor came into use with a drum on the rear and a big blade on the front to build roads. The small machines logged small veneer blocks eight feet long, and the big machines did the whole log. The big machines with an arch could handle any old growth log and leave the small timber standing. Here again they tried making bigger machines, but that trend did not last long. These machines were kept in use after the Depression. They were used to build roads and log timber that was too small a show to use donkeys on. They were not very good to use in hemlock or second growth, although they did work for an outfit that used seven chokers on one. They would use a small cat to haul the logs out to the main road, then they would skid with a big machine. Everything was going to truck logging now, so there was lots of road building. Gas power was going, out and everything was going to diesel as it is today. All kinds of new machines are coming out all the time as operations change. Exporting of logs changed many things. It brought on sorting yards and machines that could unload a whole truckload of logs and go anywhere with it. I don’t know what the next few years will bring, but no doubt there will be many changes. |
| Does History Matter?
by Bruce Weilepp Several years ago I attended
a conference on Coastal Erosion at Ocean Shores. As it turned out
I was the only person there representing a historical organization.
Everyone else came from state agencies, universities, engineering firms,
local government, and the US Geological Survey. There were a couple
people from the local media1 and one independent archeologist.
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Aerial photo of Cape Disappointment and the North Columbia River Jetty. Taken some time in the 1920s, sand has built up on the north side of the jetty. This sand would eventually migrate north and build the Peninsula westward. PCHS photo from the Anton Sorenson Collection. |
Aerial photo of Long Beach WA taken some time in the 1920s. Note that sand has started to build west from town, although dunes have not formed yet. PCHS #10-27-92.30. |
| The answer, which became apparent
during discussions with shoreline project leaders after the conference,
is that historical records are useful. Written accounts of the shoreline
from early explorers, artistic representations of the battle ground of
water and land, photographs, both from the ground and the air have enormous
potential in both the scientific realm, and in terms of making the data
comprehensible to a correctly skeptical public.
One result of my discussions with people involved in the Shoreline Erosion Study was funding for research and identification of historical materials related to coastal change. I made it clear to the State Department of Ecology that all of the information collected in our history project would be made available to the public, not just the funding agency. To their credit they readily agreed with our approach. We hired Irene Martin of Skamokawa to seek out materials based on a very broad definition of “history”. She has compiled a time line of significant shoreline events, and a bibliography of resources, starting with our collections. The search eventually took Irene as far south as the University of Oregon, and as far north as the University of Washington. Her correspondence reached the National Archives in Washington DC, as well as numerous other organizations and collections around the country. Does history matter? Is this shoreline project something that the Society should devote its resources to? I will let you, our readers and supporters decide. The next step is to put Irene’s coastal timeline online on the Society’s website at www.pacificcohistory.org. In the future we plan to use Irene’s work as the basis of publications and other educational activities. How others may use this material I can’t really predict. Education is a process, not a final product. I am, however, convinced that the shoreline story is one of Pacific County’s most interesting and important. |
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An aerial photograph of Raymond, circa 1960. Courtesy of John Rowe collection. |