The William F. Boyd collection maintained by University of Washington Libraries offers some of the best late 1800's images of the pacific northwest. A transplant from Iowa, Boyd moved to Seattle in 1888 to establish a new studio, just in time for the great Seattle fire of 1889 during which his studio burned down. His photos of the Seattle fire are some of the best you will find. He also focused on early logging - a subject near and dear to me. Following are a couple of his photographs, first showing a log apparently being rolled and not drug along a skid row. I had never seen this before. Perhaps these logs were just being staged.
Photo courtesy University of Washington Libraries, BOY87, William F. Boyd photographer, circa 1889
Loggers were willing to try most anything to move these huge monsters. If you can't drag it, roll it?
Another important way to move logs to mill was the use of log chutes, filling the chute with water to float logs downhill.
Photo courtesy University of Washington Libraries, BOY76, William F. Boyd photographer, circa 1889
As late as 1920, log chutes were still being used in our area, including a 5 mile long log chute built by the Neukirchen brothers (later owners of the Lake Sawyer sawmill) to move logs from Tiger Mountain to their mill then located about halfway between Issaquah and Hobart.
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