The Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum A history of timber harvesting

Centrally located between the headwaters of both the Androscoggin and Kennebec rivers, Rangeley has long been one of Maine’s logging centers. Native Americans used the forest of spruce, balsam fir, beech, birch, and poplar for their homes, canoes, foods, and medicines.

Timber rights attracted the first white settlers to the area in 1794, and 1833 saw the beginning of the first woods industry shingle mill. Several decades later, booms of logs and, later, pulp were towed across Rangeley’s lakes and driven down her rivers.

Rangeley’s forests were home to some of the last stands of virgin spruce. This rich heritage, combined with active logging operations, made Rangeley an ideal location for a museum dedicated to western Maine’s timber heritage. And that is exactly what occurred in the fall of 1990. After several years of dreams and hard work, the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum, known as the Maine Forestry Museum since last year, became a reality.

Renovated four times since then, the three-story Maine Forestry Museum has a collection that consists of hundreds of artifacts from regional logging operations, including two snubbing machines, sleds, an extensive assortment of crosscut and chain saws, the White Brothers’ forerunner of the skidder, and one of the last of the bateaux used on the Dead River drives. There are also exhibits on traditional art by western Maine lumbermen, including the fan towers and gumboots of William Richard, and the model drag drays and logging sleds of Carl Trafton. Nineteen oil paintings by Alden Grant, grandson of the founder of Grants’ Kennebago Camps that document life in the re-

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gion’s lumber camps from 1915-28, grace the museum’s walls.

Other features of the museum include:

*Photos and documentation about working in the woods from the late 1800s to the 1940s

*Videos dealing with the logging process and working the river drives

*Three unique dioramas depicting aspects of forestry other than logging *An interactive area for children, including logging toys

A docent is available to handle routine information inquiries. Several pamphlets and books, including Logging in the Maine Woods: The Paintings of Alden Grant, are available for purchase. High-quality reproductions of any of Grant’s paintings, on canvas or paper, are available to order at the museum or online in full size or smaller size.

Outside the museum there is a onehundred-foot pole building with examples of heavy equipment used during both the hand and horse era of logging and the first forty years of mechanized logging.

Attached to the museum are more than a hundred and twenty-five acres of land in which there is an extensive trail system that will soon be expanded. Part of the trail system is a portage trail for the seven hundred and forty-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail system which runs from Old Forge, New York, to Fort Kent.

“There are plans to add another building aimed at interactive education,” said Ron Haines, past president of the Maine Forestry Museum. “The museum is now moving to include all of the forestry activities in Maine, not just the logging. We’re always seeking donated items.”

Since 1979, the Maine Forestry Museum has held several events, including an annual logging festival, demonstrations, exhibits, loggers competitions, children’s games, parades, and concerts. Each year there is also an induction ceremony for the Loggers Hall of Fame.

“You can’t help learning a lot about the Maine logging and forestry industry by visiting the museum,” said Haines. The Maine Forestry Museum is the result of a long road traveled by many people, most notably a gentleman by the name of Rodney Richard, Sr., the “Mad Whittler,” the one who started it all. In 1968 Richard, a Hall of Fame inductee, watched as a Brown Paper Company foreman was about to push an old snubbing machine over a bank. “If you’re going to do that,” Richard yelled, “I’ll take it home.” He did, and his dream of a logging museum began to take shape. A few years later Richard talked to Rangeley individuals and organizations about creating a logging museum. In the fall of 1975, he and Peggy Yocom of the Smithso-

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nian spoke with the Historical Society. Four years later Richard, with a group of six loggers, homemakers, and area residents, founded the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum, a non-profit organization intent on collecting materials and raising money for land and buildings.

In June of 1986, the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum bought an eighteen-acre site in Dallas Plantation from Georgia Pacific Corporation, which helped make the purchase possible by deeding the property on favorable terms. Later that summer Richard began to remove the harvestable and dead timber from the property, which was completed in the fall of 1987. Also in ‘87, the final plans for the museum site were drawn up.

The foundation for the basement was constructed in the spring of 1989. The first-floor framing and decking (cont. from page 51) were also installed that year. Georgia Pacific provided gravel. Volunteers built a small pavilion to shelter festival diners. In April 1990 volunteers erected the framing for the second floor. Work continued throughout that summer to enclose the structure.

The Maine Forestry Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from late June through Labor Day and Thursday through Sunday from September through early October, and also by arrangement. There is no charge for admission, but there is a donation box at the entrance with suggested contributions. Guided tours and lectures/ demonstrations are available to groups by arrangement for a modest fee.

For more information on the Maine Forestry Museum, please call 207-864- 3939 or visit maineforestrymuseum. org.

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