John Day Fossil Beds Historic Resources Study

Chapter Six:
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (continued)

Lumbering

Ponderosa pine, fir, and mixed conifers grew in abundance in the higher elevations of Grant and Wheeler counties. In the southern portion of Wheeler County around Camp Watson were stands of the especially valuable ponderosa, or yellow pine. The Strawberry Mountains of Malheur National Forest contained 90% ponderosa pine. Because of rugged terrain and the relatively late arrival of railroad and highway access, the John Day country saw little in the way of large-scale commercial lumbering activity in the nineteenth century. Early sawmills, water and steam-powered, easily supplied all local needs for building at mining camps and towns. At least one large cattle company — the Butte Creek Land, Livestock & Lumber Company — with holdings of 8,634 acres in Wheeler County, had timber interests in the area at a relatively early date (Anonymous 1902: 728; Shaver et al. 1905: 657; Southworth n.d.: 17).

By 1902, area citizens had entered into the debate on the creation of the Blue Mountain Forest Reserve. Boosters of local economic development saw the set-aside as a threat to the future of the region:

Citizens of Grant County are now petitioning the president in opposition to a proposed forest reserve which would include over half of its territory and all of its timbered areas. The future development of the county will depend largely upon the settlement of the forest reserve question, which is now pending (Anonymous 1902: 728).

Despite the public outcry, the Blue Mountain Forest Reserve was established in 1906. For ease of management, the reserve was divided into four national forests by 1908: Umatilla, Whitman, Deschutes, and Malheur. Settling "range wars" and fighting forest wildfires was the first order of business on the Malheur Forest, but commercial logging was not far in the distance. In 1922, the Malheur forest put up 890 million board feet of timber around Bear Valley for sale to the lowest bidder. It was the largest timber sale ever offered in the Pacific Northwest, and would involve the construction of hundreds of miles of railroad, lumber camps, and sawmills. Lumberman Fred Herrick made the low bid. Soon, accusations of fraud triggered a government investigation. The sale was offered for bid once again, and this time it went to Edward Hines (Mosgrove 1980).

The Edward Hines Lumber Company of Chicago came into southern Grant County in 1926. Through the Malheur Forest sale, the company gained an early monopoly on the virgin pine forest south of the Strawberry Mountains. The operation chose the little hamlet of Senaca in Bear Valley south of John Day as its corporate headquarters, where the company hotel still stands. A private railroad brought timber down to the enormous new mill at Hines in Harney County (Southworth, n.d.: 17-18).

The Chee Lumber Company acquired over 5,800 acres of timberland in Wheeler County and had holdings in the vicinity of the Clarno, Painted Hills and Sheep Rock units of the Monument. J.D. Welch, W.F. Slaughter, and Glenn E. Husted of Portland, established the company in 1923. Its stated purpose was to engage in sawmill operations, transport logs, and manage wharves. To that end, the company applied for and received a franchise to drive, catch, boom, sort, raft, and hold logs and lumber on the John Day River and its tributaries, from the junction of the North and Middle forks at Kimberly, all the way to the Columbia River. According to the franchise application, there were no existing "improvements" on those stretches of the river at that time. Chee Lumber built several booms and several splash dams. The uppermost dam — complete with a fish ladder protected by a game warden employee during spring salmon runs — was erected just above the town of Spray. By the end of 1925, Chee had taken out 200,000 board feet of forest products (Beckham 2000 a, b).

Fig. 48. Kinzua Pine Mills Co. at Kinzua, Wheeler County, n. d. (Courtesy Fossil Museum)

Pennsylvania lumberman E.D. Wetmore first began acquiring timberland east of Fossil in 1909. In 1927, he established a sawmill in the ponderosa pine forest in an area he named Kinzua. The following year, the Kinzua Pine Mills co. built an extensive company town around the mill site. The community included 125 homes, a church, recreation hall with restaurant, barber shop, library, post office, tavern, company general store, and school. The community also boasted trout lakes for fishing, a scout camp and scout-house, and a common-carrier railroad that hauled passengers, mail, and sheep to Condon. At one time, Kinzua was the most populous town in Wheeler County, and employed some 330 workers in the mill (Stinchfield 1983: 12-13, 256).

The Kinzua Pine Mills Co. ran their own logging operation using a network of railroads into the forest, and later logging roads and trucks. As the operations pushed further from the mill, Kinzua built six logging camps, one of which survived into the 1960s as the town of Wetmore. Kinzua moved their mill operation to Heppner in 1953, and the town and mill were sold to new owners. The little railroad made its last run in 1976, and the sawmill, planing mill, and logging operations continued there until 1978. When the business finally closed its doors as the Eastern Oregon Logging Company, the town site was re-seeded by the Kinzua Corporation with 40,000 ponderosa pine trees (Stinchfield 1983: 12-13, 30, 256).

By the 1940s, there were several large companies operating in the area. Over the course of that decade, young men turned from ranching to higher paying jobs in the sawmills. Women filled in for men at the mills during World War Two, and many remained on the job beyond the War. By 1950, the timber industry had surpassed agriculture and ranching in the economy of Grant County. In Wheeler County, the Kinzua operation remained the mainstay of the economy until its final closure in the late 1970s (Taylor and Gilbert 1996: 40; Stinchfield 1983: 32, 256; Southworth n.d.: 18).

Fig. 49. The Howell Lumber Company at Long Creek, Grant County, 1959 (OrHi 77490)