Black Diamond NOW

U.S. Postal Service - In the News

What U.S. government institution, short of Congress or the Executive Branch, has it's history dating all the way back to the Constitutional Convention of 1789?  The U.S. Postal Service, of course.  Based on the policy then established, Congress passed the Post Office Act of 1792, establishing the position of Postmaster General, setting initial postal rates and outlining  postal rules and regulations.  By 1851, post offices had expanded from 75 up to 18,000 - one post office for every 1,250 people.  You had to pay for your mail and pick it up back then, but post offices became a core community hub.  Most were classified as 4th class post offices, often located in a community general store.

Since the Postal Service was granted a monopoly by congress, having one located inside your store could be a real boon to business.  And since the Postal Service, with lots of "help" from local congressmen, also established the location of Post Roads, their political sway could be significant.   Urban post offices, like those in New York, grew to be very large and limited in the number of post office boxes available.  Crowding thus gave rise to pick pockets and "penny posts".  People seeking to have their mail delivered to them, avoiding the chaos, paid a penny delivery fee to enterprising "mailmen".

In response, seeking to protect their mail monopoly, congress authorized free home delivery in cities with 10,000 or more people.  Not to be left out, rural populations clamored for service.  After all, in 1890, 75% of the U.S. population lived in rural  areas not covered by free delivery service.  Again, congress responded and Rural Free Delivery (RFD) came into being followed by the addition of free Parcel Post service in 1913.

One wagon design appears to have been used across the country when mail carrier routes were too long for delivery on foot.

Here's a mail delivery wagon in Redmond in 1910.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, L 83.92.12, circa 1910

Railroads also played a big role in the USPS country wide mail and parcel post delivery system.  The following photo of a Great Northern Railroad mail car leaving Seattle shows men sorting mail in post office rail car

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, P125087, Seattle Post Intelligencer photographer, circa 1944

"The United States Government introduced railway post office cars in 1862. As the train sped along the tracks, postal workers sorted letters and packages for all of the towns along the route. Trains carried most of the nation's intercity mail until the 1970s."

If you want to make big money, being employed by the USPS would not be the path to riches.  This photo from 1955 tells the story.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, 1986.5.11150, Seattle Post Intelligencer photo, circa 1955

The postal workers shown above are celebrating having just won a big raise after several years of drought.  Any guesses as to how much of a raise?  8.1%.  Sounds good, right?  Perhaps not so good, when your hourly rate goes from $1.61 to $1.81/hr. and your annual increase totals all of $300.  Even in the 1950's, that wasn't much.  I think I made more than that in the bulb fields.

Over the years, the number of post offices have declined significantly.

Fast forward to today and we see a whole lot of change in communications - the digital age.  Mail volumes have fallen dramatically.  On the other hand, home parcel delivery is on the upswing, further boosted by todays coronavirus pandemic.  Change however, has not been uniform through the years and there remain big gaps between those living in rural vs urban areas.  

• Today, 14.5 million people in rural areas lack access to broadband
• 18% of americans still pay bills by mail
• A significant percentage of rural residents vote by mail
• USPS delivery service is the only delivery service available to many rural areas
• What business will want to provide service and lose money

Should mail and parcel delivery service really be dropped for so many?  Or charge rural customers higher rates that city slickers?

 

Manley-Moore Lumber Company - High Tech Circa 1927

The Manley-Moore Lumber Co. sawmill was unusual in many ways.  Located along the Carbon River, it was located 1,600 feet above sea level along a narrow stretch of river frontage with its timber supply growing on steep slopes at even higher elevations.  Not the ideal place to locate a sawmill, one would think, unless timber supply came at bargain prices.  One of the bigger challenges of locating a sawmill along a narrow strip of riverside land was the logistics of moving material around.  Most large sawmills of the time used rail and/or large carts towed by large Speeders.  Most mill sites were wide, not long and narrow, making sorting and handling easier.

The Manley-Moore sawmill used the first crane that I've seen in the 1920's to move and handle lumber along their narrow mill site.  Must have been some heavy weights on the crane's rail base.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, CKK0361, Clark Kinsey photographer, circa 1927

Notice how narrow and long the crane's path traveled.  It was also nestled against the south hillside sitting on a raised trestle supported by sturdy timbers.  This configuration would seem to make crane operations much simpler and easier "lifts".  Of course, the mill also had it's own heavy duty speeders.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, CKK0359, Clark Kinsey photographer, circa 1927

And if all else failed - the high tech of them all!

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, CKK0358, Clark Kinsey photographer, circa 1927

Wood Stave Pipe and the Cedar River Pipeline

In April 1899, the City of Seattle undertook a major investment in it's future - authorizing construction of Cedar River Pipeline No. 1, delivering water from Landsburg to downtown Seattle and thus insuring a reliable source of water supply upon which to grow.  At a total contract price of over $1.2 million, the new pipeline extended a total of 29.5 miles, including 6.0 miles of 42" steel pipe, 1.0 mile of 36" steel pipe and 22.5 miles of 42" wooden stave pipe.  That's a lot of money for the time, but town fathers were determined to emerge from their competition with Tacoma as top seaport, and dare I say, top dog in the northwest.  And they succeeded on both accounts.

Using wooden pipe for water mains has a long history dating back to Roman times, later replaced by lead pipe (a bad decision). Wooden pipe emerged as popular again in Europe and the U.S. in 17th and 18th centuries.  Drilling a hole through the log's core created the method of conveyance.  There were a few bugs with this method, however, both literally and figuratively and a return to metals again became the norm.  But once again, with improved wood stave pipe technology, wood re-emerged one last time in the 1880's and remained popular in this country well into the 1920's.

Image courtesy HistoryLink.org.

The above image shows wooden stave pipe being built on the job.  Surround the wooden structure with steel wire bound tightly and you have pipe that is both strong and virtually leak free.  It was also common to build pipe in standard lengths, ready for fitting end to end on the job, much like steel or concrete.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, SEA2555, circa 1906

By 1916, Seattle was ready to move ahead with Cedar River Pipeline No. 3, but this time city authorities had been sold on the benefits of steel and concrete.  Apparently a couple of washouts along the river near Landsburg had soured the city's taste for wood and they wanted something that would last longer with less maintenance - except steel and concrete cost more.  I ran across an interesting article in the Seattle Star dated October 12, 2016 that pitted the pro steel and concrete city hall against local businesses, like the West Coast Lumberman's Association, who favored the use of wood.

For a fun read, you can find the complete article at Download Cedar river pipeline.

In the end, it appears that a compromise was struck and that a combination of concrete, steel and wood stave pipe were used.  Following are a few photos from this period.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, 1983.10.3161.4, Webster & Stevens, circa 1926

Pretty healthy steel strapping.  Reliance on building pipe on site apparently remained their standard practice.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, 1998.21.17, circa 1926

Image courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, #3820, circa 1929

But in the immediate Landsburg area, concrete became the norm.

Image courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives, circa 1930

Stop by the Maple Valley Historical Society for more about wood stave pipe and you can actually see a real example on display.

 

How do you Truck a 132' Long Log?

Very carefully?  Yes, of course, but how do you truck it and better yet why?  There's certainly no regular market for logs or lumber of this length and the cost had to be extraordinary.  The answer as to why is straight forward - building a bridge for a logging railroad required long stringers that can support heavy loads.  A 132' long Douglas Fir is exceptionally strong, though with a bit of a deflection I'm sure.  Remember the railroad trestle built by Pacific States Lumber Co.?  The how of trucking this stringer log is less straight forward.

Image courtesy Washington State Digital Library, AR255-114-0-1_LL-0976, Lee Pickett photographer, circa 1937

The answer - load the large butt end of the log onto a conventional log truck, fastening securely.  Then lift the top end onto a trailer attached to another truck, securing the log end at the truck.  Finally, pull the whole load using the lead truck, including the back end log trailer and truck, using both as a trailer.  A driver in this end rig somehow had to communicate with the driver in the lead rig to navigate.  Stranger things have happened and I guess it worked.  How would you like to drive around a corner in the road with this setup?

Are log stringer bridges still used today?  Believe it or not, yes!  Attached for all of you engineers out there is a "Graduating Essay" from April 2008, showing how it's done.  Enjoy Download LeeMichael_FRST_497_Graduating_Essay_2008 (1).

Cable Locomotives

The northwest logging industry's transition between teams of oxen on skid roads and the use of geared locomotives on steel rails was not without some interesting hybrid technologies.  Although Shay geared locomotives were first patented as far back as 1881, it took some time before they became widely used here.  After all, they weren't cheep and neither was the time and cost of building full scale logging railroads across difficult and hilly operating terrain.  One solution - build a "railroad" using wooden ties and rails and steam donkey engines in place of locomotives.  You didn't even need rail cars on which the logs were placed.  Just drag them along the railroad bed instead.

Image courtesy Washington State Digital Archives, John T. Labbe Collection, circa 1903

If you had the money for steel rail but not locomotives and railcars, this is one way to make it up and down a 25% grade.

Image courtesy Washington State Digital Archives, John T. Labbe Collection, n.d.

These were called cable locomotives because a cable attached to the donkey engine was used to literally pull the "locomotive" and logs up and down the rail line.  No worries about brakes either with all the weight and friction of logs being drug along behind.  Going uphill was easy too with the cable connected uphill of the steam donkey.

Image courtesy Washington State Digital Archives, John T. Labbe Collection, n.d.

Notice the barrels of water at the front of the donkey engine.  Travel distances would have been significantly limited by the capacity of these barrels to supply water to the steam donkey.  And then, of course, there were what I'll call DIY locomotives.

Image courtesy Washington State Digital Archives, John T. Labbe Collection, n.d.

Better than using teams of horses and oxen?

Rigging a Spar Tree - It's Complicated

As noted many times, high lead cable logging revolutionized the logging industry in the pacific northwest.  Instead of teams of oxen and horses dragging logs along skid roads, we had steam donkey engines powering the use of cables to yard and load railcars and log trucks.  Central to it all was the use of spar trees for connecting a complex web of cables required to make it all work.  Not so simple as the following photo shows.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, Darius Kinsey photographer, circa 1924

What did all of these cables connect too and what were they used for?  A set-up like this required the use of multiple donkey engines and an incredible amount of coordination and communication.  "High climbers" were among the highest paid loggers on a crew and skilled in scaling a spar tree, trimming branches on the way up and then topping it.  But among the most important skills was rigging the spar tree and making cable connections before finally returning to earth.  Can you imagine how much weight and stress these cable connections and cables had to handle?  A safety hazard ready to happen for sure.  Unfortunately, failures were not uncommon, sometimes with disastrous consequences for crew members on the ground. 

They sure had a nice view at this logging site.

Let's Eat

Among the fastest growing segments of the home delivery economy is food.  This is certainly not a new phenomena, with dairy, bakery products, meats and grocery store items delivered to both city and rural dwellers dating back to the early 1900's.  Mainly perishable items before people had their own automobiles and refrigeration.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, 93.001.066, circa 1908

Pizza chains pioneered home delivery of prepared ready to eat meals in the 70's and 80's.  Now, even before the coronavirus crisis sparked our current surge in demand, home delivery of food has become a major growth market - both ready to eat and ready to cook, which seems particularly popular with seniors. 

Following are a few charts recently prepared by the consulting firm Statista that forecasts revenue in the Online Food Delivery market to reach nearly $25 billion in 2020.  These estimates were published in January and one would expect these numbers to be even higher now given our country's current state of affairs and pressures to reduce commuting.

Although direct restaurant to consumer delivery still accounts for the largest share of this market (e.g., like Domino's Pizza delivering their own food), the real growth is happening with deliveries from companies like Grub Hub and Uber Eats that make no food products themselves, but instead deliver food from the menus of multiple restaurants.  Even Domino's now delivers food from other restaurants and we now have dairies like Smith Brothers Farms in Kent delivering a substantially broadened menu to include not just milk, cheese and eggs, but other prepared food as well.

In this way, restaurants can focus on their business of preparing food and even small restaurants can now have their menu widely available to a much larger audience.  The "Platform to Consumer Delivery" companies focus on the logistics of getting food from the restaurant to the consumer and don't prepare food themselves.  Much like Uber and Lyft, who have largely displaced conventional taxi businesses, Grub Hub "crowd sources" their drivers, which both improves flexibility and reduces fixed costs.  So if you order on line for a dinner piping hot and ready to eat when you arrive home from a long work commute, you will have lots of choices and though still somewhat more expensive than a "dine out" dinner, the value of convenience continues to escalate.

Is the U.S. leading the charge?  Nope - China is way ahead.

I expect we are going to see a whole different world of home delivery in the next 10 years, not even accounting for the rapid advances in new delivery technologies, such as the use of robotics, autonomous driverless vehicles, drones and delivery directly into the trunk of your car or even into your refrigerator.  Interesting times.

 

It's the Culture!

What began in Washington State in 1900, represented a significant technical breakthrough in it's time, is still in high demand today and is just plain yummy?  The answer, of course, is Cougar Gold cheese and you don't need to be a Cougar to enjoy it.

Still made in Pullman like in the good old days, Cougar Gold and other "cheeses" in the family are a real treat and great comfort food during these gray days and times of doldrum.  What was the breakthrough?  As cheddar cheese ages, it can be a bit "gassy", giving off small amounts of CO2 that can make packaging a problem.  If packaged in cans, the gas can cause them to bulge and break open.  WSU Creamery and Dr. Norman Golding, working in conjunction with the U.S. Military in the 1930's, developed a cheese recipe that didn't produced carbon dioxide in the aging process.

"This culture is still maintained at the Creamery as it has been for 60+ years, much like a perpetual sourdough starter maintained in bakeries. That culture makes Cougar Gold slightly different than a traditional cheddar, lending a slightly nutty, creamy flavor."

Today, the WSU Creamery is a thriving part of WSU's Food Science Department, making upwards of 200,000 cans of cheese a year, or close to 400,000 lbs, is financially self sustaining and a learning lab to about 70 students each year.  And you can have it delivered to your home too - a real necessity these days.  You can buy it online at WSU Creamery Cougar Cheese .  

Not sure how I ended up focusing a blog post of Cougar Gold.  I guess it's because I've been doing a lot of reading lately about the growth of home delivery services, a trend now accelerating as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.  Somehow I got distracted as I was reminded I should order some Cougar Gold.  Lot's more about the history, current trends and consumer demand for home delivery services in future posts - there's a whole lot going on and much more than just Amazon.

Raker Teeth

What technological innovation first made logging in the northwest possible?  If your answer was "raker" teeth on crosscut saws, go to the head of the class.  When loggers first arrived here, standard practice was to fell trees by chopping them down with a felling ax.  Can you imagine? 

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, KIN045, Darius Kinsey photographer, 1890

Crosscut saws had been around for decades in the Midwest and northeast, but simply didn't work on large diameter softwood timber such as douglas fir, spruce and hemlock when trying to fell a tree.  Ok for bucking, but not felling.  They became bound up and clogged quickly in the moist and sticky pitch fiber/sawdust produced, making it impossible for even the hardiest of loggers to push and pull their "misery whips" back and forth cutting through a tree.  The innovation - add raker teeth to saw blades.  

Image courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service

The raker blade acted as a chisel to scoop out the wood between grooves scribed by the cutting teeth.

Additional fine tuning of saw blade design followed.  Notice the curvature added to both felling and bucking saw blades - further reduced sawblades getting bound up.  Bucking saws also were modified with raker teeth to make them more efficient.

Image courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service

Now, loggers could use their axe for cutting notches in the tree for supporting "springboards" and use saws for sawing.  It may seem obvious that "sawing" is more efficient than "chopping", but at the time, it was no small game changer.  Add a few chisels to limit binding up and you were good to go.  And don't fall off the springboard!

Courtesy University of Washington Libraries

Truck Logging Circa 1921

By 1920, northwest logging had been largely transformed from a skid road horse and oxen regime to one dominated by donkey engines, high lead logging practices and logging railroads.  Because these technologies were capital intensive, particularly the railroads, the industry was largely dominated by the well capitalized big boys - such as Weyerhaeuser and St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company.  The end of WWI, however, placed the industry on the cusp of another major industry sea change - here came the log trucks.  Following the war, plenty of surplus trucks became available for the right price.  Soon, gone were the first generation log trucks, replaced by vehicles with much more powerful engines and better braking systems.  Solid narrow tires without tread, were replaced by wider pneumatic tires with tread, driving on much improved dirt roads.

The following photo taken in 1920 shows an early "open air" model being loaded using a spar tree boom.

Image courtesy Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-79123, circa 1921

Note the lift capacity of this boom rig!  The use of log trucks literally exploded from here with, by one estimate, over half of all logs transported to sawmills by truck in 1930.  Log trucks also served to transform the industry competitive landscape - giving birth to what became known as gyppo loggers, both loved and hated by many.  

Timberland Surveys Circa 1890

With all of the building going on around here, it seems we can't go anywhere without running across one or more survey teams setting new lot lines or utilities markers.  Living now in the digital age, the skill set for being a surveyor has certainly changed over time.  What was it like if we reset the clock back to 1890?  Under regulations established by Congress, Washington State was divided into 71,362 sections, each section encompassing 1 square mile or 640 acres.  The state was further divided into survey townships of 36 sections in the form of rectangular grids.  Homesteads were awarded based on these surveys as were timber holdings and Section Grants awarded to the Northern Pacific Railroad.  My gosh, so many of our current land maps and surveys date back to these early days.  How did they do it?

Pretty simple, really - chains and a compass.  

These were known as Gunter Chains.  Each chain was 66 feet long with 80 chains pieced end to end for a total distance of 1 mile.  Pretty simple really, but if you were a logging surveyor, can you visualize dragging one of these heavy chains up into the woods and stringing a straight line from one end to the other for 1 mile with only a compass to guide you?  According to Roy Stier in his book "Down The Hill", chronicling the history of St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Co. (where Judy's dad, George Zoffel, worked as a logging superintendent), most surveys were surprisingly accurate. 

"The original surveyors were required to set a post or monument at 40 chains (1/2 mile) and at 80 chains (1 mile).  Along the section line, they were to blaze trees with an ax on two sides.  The scars from these ax marks were plain to see for many years and made it easier for timber cruisers and others that came after."   "Sightings of Polaris were used to periodically account for compass needle deflection."  

Mistakes were made, of course, but gradually corrected over the years.  For me, this is another good example of "How In The World Did They Do It?

Recycling - Making Progress

Though there continue to be decided growing pains and much of our waste still goes to landfill, recycling today is more the norm than the exception.  And these days, even the size of recycle bins significantly exceed that of our garbage bins.  If anything, we need even larger recycle bins.

Perhaps the best sign of progress is the growth of local companies that are using recycled plastics in their manufacturing processes - producing salable products out of waste material.  China and other Asian countries shut the door to our export of waste and this may turn out to be a good thing since we have to deal with the problems ourselves.  This is particularly true for waste plastics, including hard to get rid of Styrofoam and other styrene based materials.

Recently a company called Styro Recycle set up shop in Kent and Judy has found them to be a great place to take a variety of packing materials such as packing peanuts, clear bubble wrap, clear plastic wrapping and even cardboard.

Their website provides a complete list of the materials they accept and our experience to date has been very positive.  They do not, however, take plastic bags like those used in grocery stores and neither do our garbage haulers.  But good news here too - just bag them up and take them back to your local grocers.  Both Safeway and Fred Meyer/QFC will accept returned plastic bags. 

Yea, some positive news for a change!

Feller Bunchers - Then & Now

While driving along SR 410 just east of Greenwater, I recently ran across a logging operation clearcutting a site right next to the highway.  Always curious, I found a parking spot just down the road, grabbed my camera and went back to see what equipment they were using.  Not surprisingly, I found two Feller Bunchers and a couple of Knuckleboom loaders.  The trees were already down and a single swing loader was being used to sort and pile logs for loading logging trucks that will soon take them away.

In case you were not aware, Feller Bunchers have long been used in northwest logging.  It's just that they looked a little different back in the day.  Here's an earlier generation of Feller Bunchers:

Image courtesy Washington State Historical Society, 1943.42.20572, Asahel Curtis photographer, circa 1911

The above photo shows a logging crew employed by McDougal & Billideau felling a douglas firs at a site near Landsburg.  All they needed were a couple of spring boards, a sharp "misery whip", a couple of axes and two loggers - fueled by about 6,000 calories a day each.  In no time (maybe a day or so), this timber would be lying on the ground, ready for trimming branches and bucking into lengths suitable for transport by teams of horses or oxen -  felled and bunched, in other words..

Photo courtesy Washington State Historical Society, 1977.61.2, Darius Kinsey photographer, circa 1906

A crew of two and another 12,000 calories later, "bunching" for transport might be complete.

Here's are photo's of the two Feller Bunchers being used this last week.

Talk about a great place to work.  Covered cabs with heat and air conditioning too.  The scenery isn't bad here either.

These Feller Buncher machine operators don't even need to get out of their comfortable chairs.  Depending on the machine head configuration being used, they can fell whole trees, buck them to length and trim the branches - and probably log onto the internet too?  There are several types of cutting heads that can be used on these machines - disk saws, bar saws (much like a chainsaw) and shears.

At maturity, trees today are no longer so big - not like the old growth timber in the age of yore.  That, coupled with today's technology, sure makes logging safer and far more efficient these days.  Next week, I'll look at Knuckleboom Swing Loaders - then and now.

Pile Bridges - Medieval Engineering in Northwest Logging

Building logging railroads in the northwest in the early days was no easy task.  Virtually no timberlands in the Cascades or Olympics are flat and  stream beds had a way of eroding into canyons or gorges that must be crossed to get from one logging site to the next.  One solution to crossing these canyons was to borrow engineering from the Romans of medieval times and build Pile Bridges.

Image courtesy Library of Congress, circa 1914

The pile bridge shown above was built by the English Logging Railway near Mt. Vernon and advertised at the time as being the highest pile bridge in the world at 119 feet.  Pile bridges use long poles typically made of wood (piles) as the structural foundation that are hammered into the ground.  Piles are hammered until the grip or friction is sufficient to hold the load of the bridge, and in this case the locomotive and railcars that will use it.  How they determined there was enough friction to carry the load is beyond me but this was not the only bridge in the annals of northwest logging history to be built this way.  Cross braces are added to keep it from falling over.   Here's another one.

Image courtesy Library of Congress, circa 1922

The piles in the above bridge are 132 feet long with a bridge height of 107 ft. at the top of the rails.

They look pretty fragile to me, but then the first pile bridge was thought to have been built by the Romans as far back as 642BC.  Now that's an engineering technology that lasted for a while.

Steam Powered Dragsaws

The early 1900's were a time of great innovation in pacific northwest logging.  Donkey engines and the use of spar trees paved the way for high lead logging methods and technology that revolutionized the industry.  Logging railroads then extended the reach of timber harvesting deep into the remote Cascade foothills.  But it would take some years before a suitable replacement for bucking logs in the woods using man powered crosscut saws could be found.  The use of steam powered dragsaws was an early attempt.  

Image courtesy Washington Rural Heritage, LOGGMACH010, circa 1916

The above photo shows a man pulling on a wire to engage the back and forth saw motion powered by steam.  This early model was used by the Puget Sound Mills & Timber Company.  As we can see, the saws were pretty big and clunky, very heavy and far from being user friendly.  Why were they called dragsaws?  The saw blade differed from conventional crosscut saws in that the teeth were designed only to cut one way - cut, then drag back.  Steam could be bled off from a donkey engine used for high lead logging as the source of power.

The use of gasoline powered engines was certainly an improvement in the portability and functionality of dragsaws, but they too were rather unreliable and "unloved" during this early period.

Image courtesy Bella Coola Museum

At least with the above model, the dragsaw could be left unattended for a period while the operator used his axe to split the log segments bucked by the dragsaw for cordwood.  It would take until after WWII before chainsaws came to be mainstream.   For more about dragsaws, follow this link to an early post Early Logging Automation.

 

Before There Were Trucks

What would we do without trucks?  Today, trucks move approximately 70% of all goods transported in the U.S. and 71% of the tonnage.  Over 10.8 billion tons of freight were moved by truck in 2017 in an industry employing over 7.4 million people - 5.8% of all full time workers in the country.  Now, go back to 1900 and before internal combustion engines were generally available.  How were goods delivered?  Railroads and shipping accounted for a bigger share, no doubt, but the economy still largely relied on horse drawn wagons.  That is, unless you had a "steam wagon".

Image courtesy Kent Historical Society, circa 1900

The above photo shows a steam powered delivery truck used by Joe Cowan in Kent (seen on the left).  He Delivers the Goods!  Take note of the wooden wheels and the hand brake.  I wonder how if any gears were used and how they controlled their speed and braking?  Steam powered trucks generally worked OK for local deliveries, but not so well for longer trips.

Karl Benz, in 1895, is generally credited with designing and building the first truck in history with an internal combustion engine.  Trucks of this period typically used a two-cylinder engine with a carrying capacity of about 3,000 to 4,000 lbs.  With 700 heavy duty trucks manufactured in the U.S. in 1904, total production had increased to over 25,000 by 1914.  It would take until the late 1930's for diesel engines to catch on in the U.S. and as they say - it's all history from there.

Shear Power

Which engines used for transportation pack the most punch - steam power, internal combustion or electric power?  I always thought that steam engines had the most muscle but apparently not so, particularly when weight is considered.  Electric powered engines on a pound per pound basis win the prize hands down.  Following is a photo dating back to 1920 showing an electric powered locomotive on your left pitted against a Mallet steam engine on the right.  Guess who won.

Image courtesy White River Valley Museum, PO-00538, Asahel Curtis photographer, circa 1920

The electric powered locomotive won the pushing contest hands down.  The above photo was taken near the old Borden Plant in Kent and was used to publicize the Puget Sound Electric Railway that at one time provided passenger service between Seattle and Tacoma much as Sound Transit does today.  

Have you taken a ride in one of today's electric powered automobiles, like a Tesla, Nissan Leaf or Chevrolet Bolt?  Fasten your seatbelt.

Tow Trucks - Then and Now

In 1906, Washington State had 1,253 automobiles registered here.  By 1910, the number had grown to 9,311 and by 1915, there were over 46,000 vehicles licensed in the state.  But there was a problem or two or three.  Roads were terrible, cars and trucks of the time were less than reliable and drivers were not particularly skilled.  The result was plenty of accidents and vehicle breakdowns.  Alas, time to bring in a team of horses.

According to Wikipedia, an enterprising fellow in Tennessee saw the light ($$$$) and began making the first motorized tow trucks in 1916.  I'm not sure when tow trucks found their way to the Puget Sound Region, but here's one in a photo dated 1918/1921.  

Image courtesy WSU Libraries Digital Collection, circa 1918

It didn't take long for a good idea to spread.  This rig seems to be all set for rope towing.  In a few years, the back of tow trucks were rigged with a beam, making it a whole lot easier to winch vehicles out of bad places - in this case after crashing through a barrier on a road in Tacoma.

Image courtesy Tacoma Public Library, Richards Studio A1011-0, circa 1926

Some were pretty neat looking too and carried cart like wheels for trailering disable vehicles.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, SEA2839, circa 1929

Anybody remember the name William O McKay?  They were an auto dealer who started in Seattle in 1923 and continued  in business into the 1980's.  It's their tow truck shown in the above photo.  Tow trucks were a big part of their early customer service program, as it was for many auto dealers of the time.  And, of course, it always paid to be good friends with the police.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, P124816, circa 1942

Today in Black Diamond, Royal Towing provides local service.  Very nice people, but I would just as soon not have to be on their customer list. 

Lots of changes in the business these days.  Not only is Royal Towning's equipment capable of hauling big semis out of ditches, but they also operate an auction business for the sale of unclaimed impounded vehicles.  Who would have thought?  Wherever there is an unmet need I guess.

 

Lidgerwood Tower Skidders Circa 1929

High lead logging revolutionized the timber industry in the northwest.  The use of spar trees followed by manufactured steel towers continue to this day (see my earlier post Tower Skidders Then & Now).  The Lidgerwood Manufacturing Company based in Tacoma introduced the first "big boys" designed to handle the big timber, steep slopes and rough railroad grades of northwest forests in about 1915.  In 1929, Lidgerwood, working with Weyerhaeuser Company, took steel tower skidders to a whole new level.  These were truly monster machines.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries and the Roots of Motive Power, Clark Kinsey photographer, circa 1929

Each skidder included it's own steam donkey engine for power and it's own rail car body for transport.  Can you imagine the weight of these machines on railroad tracks already precariously dug into the hillsides where timber was being logged?  They also required a huge crew to operate.  Today, tower skidders require only one or two operators and can go about anywhere.  Not back then.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, CKK1015, Clark Kinsey photographer, circa 1929

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, CKK0591, Clark Kinsey photographer, circa 1929

They were expensive too and cost more than a brand new top of the line railroad engine.  The tower skidder shown in these photos reportedly cost Weyerhaeuser Company $56,000 plus another $15,000 for rigging when they took delivery in February 1929.  With the great depression soon to follow, a case of bad timing to be sure.  Somehow though, Weyerhaeuser made it through and by 1937 they had invested over $1 million in the logging railroads and $468 thousand in logging equipment just to serve their operations in the Longview area and keep their mills supplied.  Logging is a little simpler today as shown by this then and now comparison.

Then

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, CKK4814, Clark Kinsey photographer, circa 1929

Now

 

 

Skid Road Bridges

If we think Skid Roads were rough, Skid Road Bridges were an exercise in pure brute force.  Man over nature.  No engineers needed to build these, though a level would be nice.

Photo courtesy Washington State Historical Society, C1948.1214.8, circa 1897

As noted on the photo, this bridge is 100 yards log and 50 feet tall.  Notice how logs were pulled across - one log after another connected by cables.  Bridges like this were not the exception.  As we hikers in the Cascades know so well, ups and downs and steep ravines caused by streams that must be crossed are common and frequent along the trails.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress, n.d.

Notice the team of oxen in the background of the above photo dragging their burden across a skid road bridge before they get to this one.  And here's another:

Phot courtesy Library of Congress, n.d.

Brute force x 2 with oxen (aka "hay burners") and log bridge.