Paul Bunyan's Logging History

It was just 31 years ago that the Red River Lumber Company, of Westwood, California, printed and issued its famous little booklet entitled: "Paul Bunyan and His Big Blue Ox." The book soon became famous. The text was compiled and the illustrations drawn by W. B. Laughead, then Sales Manager for the company.

According to the October 15th, 1922, issue of THE CALIFORNIA LUMBER MERCHANT, the booklet created much rnterest in the lumber fraternity of the West, and many of the fabulous tales told therein were repeated countless times by the lumber folks.

The booklet relates that the legendary Paul Bunyan was born and got his start in Maine, and later in the forests of New Hampshire. Paul was the inventor of logging. And, since there was no precedent, he also had to invent all the tools and the rnethods used in logging. Some of them, of course' were primitive, but they got the job done. And soon all the loggers everywhere were telling tall tales about Paul. AJso about his great Blue Ox, Babe, which did most of his work in the logging woods.

According to one of the early tales, Paul was born in Maine, and when he was just three weeks old he ll'as so big and strong that when he rolled around in his sleep one night he crushed four square miles of standing pine timber. They built a floating cradle for Paul and anchored it off Eastport, Maine. When Paul rockEd his cradle it caused a 7S-foot tide in the Bay of Fundy, and washed away several villages. That is how the high tides started in the Bay of Fundy, and they have not subsided to this day.

When Paul started logging he had only his axe and the Big Blue Ox, Babe. Where he got Babe is something nobody knows. He could pull anythings that had two ends to it. He was 42 axe handles and a plug of tobacco wide between the eyes. Ancl that was measured with Pauls axe handles, which were equal to 42 ordinary axe handles.

Paul had a bookkeeper for his logging named Johnny Inkslinger, who invented bookkeeping at the same time that Paul invented logging. Jo'hnny invented the first fountain pen by jacking up a barrel of ink and then running a rubber hose trom it down to the bookkeeping table' He used so much ink in keeping the books for Paul's big logging outfit that in order to economize he stopped crossing the "t's" and dotting the "i's" and he saved nine barrels of ink'

When Johnny Inkslinger got to figuring costs on Babe, the Big Blue Ox, he found that while Babe would eat as much food in a day as one whole camp crew could haul to camp in a year'

A Re-hash

but since Babe would haul all the timber ofi of 640 acres to the river all at once, it made his expense low. They used Babe to pull the kinks out of crooked logging roads and straighten them out. Babe was a great practical joker' Once he slipped up behind a crew that was making a big 1og drive in a river, and he drank the river dry, leaving the logs all lying on dry land.

When Paul first started logging, the crew would load up a sled with logs and then they would have to wait for Paul to come and pick up the four horses and loaded sled and head them the other way. So Paul invented the round turn.

He invented the crosscut saw, which they called the "two with axes by Paul's top crew, the Seven Axemen and the man saw" at first. Up to that time the trees were all cut down Little Chore Boy. These eight men had a camp all their own where it took three hundred cooks to prePare their food' Their axes were so big it took a w-eek to grind one of them' They chopped down all the timber in one state from their one camp, and they walked to and from work. '

But the Seven Axemen finally disappeared. They went down the tote road one day and never returned. Then Paul had to invent the crosscut saw, for two men to pull. Then Big Ole, a Scandinavian, who was a famous mechanic, built what Paul called the "down-cutter." This was a tree sawing rig much like a grain mowing machine, except it cut down a swath of trees 500 feet wide.

When Paul got tired logging in Maine and New }lampshire, he went West to Minnesota, and there performed his greatest logging exploits. As he walked West with Babe, the Big Blue Ox, someone asked him if the high mountain ranges had bothered him. Paul said he didn't see any mountains; the trail was a little bumpy at times, but that was all.

In the Middle West country he logged all the Dakotas in one season. Those states were covered with fine timber, but Paul cut it ofi so clean that the trees never grew back. He tried to run his logging crews three shifts a day, and to give the night crews light, he invented the Aurora Borealis. But he had to quit the night work. The lights were too unreliable-

Once Babe ran away and was gone all day, roaming all over the state of Minnesota. His tracks were so deep that they now form the thousands of lakes in the "Land of the Sky-Blue Water." Some of this tracks were so d6ep that it took a long rope to drop down to haul a man out that fell into one. ft was reported that a settler and his wife and little boy fell into one of Babe's tracks, and the son crawled out when he was 54 years old and reported the accident.

Brimstone Bill, who was one of Paul Bunyan's boss loggers, had Babe, the Big Blue Ox, hitched to a big old water tank and was hauling water from Lake Superior to North Dakota. In the early morning when it was extra cold the tank busted when they were just half way across Minnesota. Brimstone Bill saved himself from drowning by hanging onto Babe's tail, and the Big Blue Ox pulled him out of the leak. But that leak was the start of the Mississippi River, and has been flowing ever since.

One of Paul Bunyan's biggest jobs when he was logging off the forests of North Dakota, was feeding his crews. He had two camps. At one camp it required 300 cooks just to make pancakes for 8 of his men, the Seven Axemen and the Chore Boy. At the other camp on the Big Onion River he had just one cook, but he had 462 cookees (assistant cooks), and Paul himself never knew within five hundred men either way how many employees he had. The pancake griddles were a quarter of a mile long, and he kept them greased by strapping

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big hams on the feet of two colored boys and having them skate continually up and down the griddles.

When he had cut all the timber ofi of North Dakota (that State was a solid forest before that) so clean that it never grew back, he moved his operations to the Pacific Northwest. His first job there was digging the channel for the Columbia River. Then he dredged out Puget Sound and let the water run in. He took all the dirt he dug up on those two jobs and piled it up and built l\{ount Rainier.

Then, according to the book, he moved down to Westwood, California, and went to work for the Red River Lumber Cornpany, where he opened up the great Pine forests of that territory.

There is some doubt as to the truth of several of the reports of his work in California. It is said that he dug San Francisco Bay, and built the Golden Gate, but there is some doubt on that score. Some people say he didn't even build the falls of the Yosemite, as the loggers of the early days claimed.

Bob leonord Dies Suddenly

Robert O. Leonard, 39, executive editor of Crow's Digest, at Portland, Oregon, died suddenly December 10th. He was previously public relations director of the Western Pine Association, and joined the Digest early in 1953.

llorn in Dubuque, Iowa, he attended Northwestern University and in 1938 came to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where he ,first worked for the Pelican Bay Lumber Company. I-ater he served as reporter, sports editor and night editor of the Klamath Falls Herald & News until he entered the army in 1942. An accomplishecl skier, he served with the -ou.,t"in infantry and air corps weather service.

In 1946 he was named managing editor of the Twin Falls, Idaho, Telegram, a position which he left to become city editor of the Idaho Daily Statesman.

His home was at 7907 S.W. Birchwood Road, Portland. He is survived by his wife, Patricia, a daughter, Marcia, and son, Kip, all of Portland; his mother, Mrs. O. J. Leonard, and a brother, Charles, both of Millbrae. Calif.

New Aluminum Windows

The F. C. Russell Company announces that it will introduce new Thermoseal Aluminum Prime Windows at the annual convention of the Southern California Retail Lumbermen's Association convention to be held in Los Angeles April 202r-22.

F. W. Elliott

Wholesalc

Weyerhqeuser lmProvements Ar Roymond' Wosh.

Raymond, Wash., Dec. 3-Weverhaeuser Timber Cornpany will construct new facilities at its millsite here from the stacker through the dry kilns, unstacker, planing mill and shipping shed, it was announced today by David M. Fisher, manager of the firm's Willapa branch.

Construction, which will start immediately, has beeu planned in such a manner that production will not be interrupted during the building period. Eacl.r new addition to the plant will be constructed on a different site than the one now in operation. When each new facility is completed ancl goes into operation, the corresponding old one will be closed down ancl removed-thus making room for yet another adclition.

\fest Coast Softwoods

Idaho

Douglas h-rcluded in the renovating program will be work on the plantsite-fencing, parking area improvement, log pond and harbor work, railroad trackage changes, sewage and rvater system changes anci electrical facilities.

"Nlodernization of the plantsite will result in considerable annual savings due to improved prnduction facilities," saicl Fisher. "The changes will also allow the manufacture of a better product of greater value through irnproved planing mill and drying facilities."

New units will include a 2}-foot stacl<er, ten single-ended dry kilns with cooling sheds, a 2O-foot unstacker, a rough-dry shed with a dry sorter, new planing mill and new storage and shipping shed. Cranes 100 feet wide will be installecl in both the rough-dry storage shed and the shipping shed.

It is estimated that the new dry kilns will errable Weyerhaeuser's Willapa branch to dry 30 million boarcl feet per year. The new planing mill will surface 90 per cent of the rough Iumber produced there.

Mohogony in 1954

(Continued {rom Page 42) panels, distributive outlets are very definitely on the increase and should make big gains in the coming year'. Mahogany lumber is on the increase for solid elenlents rlf arclritectural woodwork and in solicl paneling. In cost, N4ahogany occttpies a very competitive position.

Another significant development during the conring .1'ear will be the newly established Architectural Woodworlt Institute of America. This branch of the u'oocl industry has been a Rip Van Winkle for the last twenty years in spite of the fact that the public at large and most architects have a very deep-seated affection for woocl. At long last, the rvood substitute industries are not going to have an unchallengecl nror.ropoly on service to the architect and to the public.

The Mahogany Association is going to bat with the largest trade promotion prograrn in its thirty year history. This campaign will concentrate principally in the furnitttre antl architectural fields

What about supply? We do not knou'. \\re are in the same position as the farmer. An awful lot clepen<ls on the r'r'eather which is never very good in the tropics frorn a logging standpoint. Logging can be done only in the clry seasou which is short and uncertain. However, unless extrer.nely bad conditions develop, the supply of Mahogany should be ample to rneet tl.re demand. \reneer inventories are back to norrnal. Mahogany lumber inventories are consiclerably better than they have been in the post war years but still are subnortlral on prevt'a. .,ut-t,14rrls.