Logging virgin timber

The Lucas family had a logging operation during the Great Depression near Bovill, Idaho. My oldest uncle, Ralph Lucas, was in charge, but the crew was full of members of the family, including my dad.

It was all virgin forests then and had never seen a saw nor work crews. The logs were so large that you could only get three on a truck or railroad car. Only a few mills had saws large enough to cut the logs, so they sold to the mill at Potlatch, Idaho.

There wasn’t much machinery in those days, so timber was cut by crosscut saws with two men on them. Logs were pulled to loading docks by mule or horses.

The logs were taken to the mill by truck, rail, and some logs were floated on the Palouse River.

Lumbering in one form or other was a major activity in the 1930s since there was a mill in most towns. The work was dangerous. My dad had his leg broken when a pile of logs rolled over him. He was soon back at it, this time driving a logging truck.

My uncle killed a black bear and had a rug made out of it. I stayed at his house some 50 years later and that bear was hanging on the wall and the bed was a feather bed.

All my bothers worked at one time for the Potlatch mill and I followed when I was old enough.

I worked in a pea canning place in Walla Walla after graduation, and when I returned home, I heard that Strongs Mill was looking for help. I interviewed and got the job.

It was working on a two-man saw, dropping timber and hooking chokers in the woods, a job I wasn’t suited for.

When winter came along and the mill was about to close, I applied at Potlatch and was hired. It was a good paying job and year around.

That’s where I learned to grade lumber, which served me at Lincoln Lumber Company, nearby, and at Kirkpatrick Lumber here in Grand Coulee, Emerson Lumber in Wilbur, and several places in Southern Idaho.

The family lived at camp, killed game for meat and bought things for meals in big bags. My dad learned to make biscuits and other things in logging camp. The biscuits would nearly float in the air. At home, my dad did a lot of the cooking, particularly when biscuits were called for.

I was always fascinated when a log was opened up to see how it would grade out.

I followed the family tradition of lumbering in one format or other until I entered college and thought that someday I would write about it.