Established by Charles Clemmons in 1886 when he started logging in the Grays Harbor area. Clemons Logging Company was formally organized in 1903. Charles H. Clemons was the first president. The company had a logging camp in the Melbourne area. Melbourne was a logging center on the Chehalis River seven and a half miles east of Aberdeen in south central Grays Harbor County.
The company was logging in the North River area, due south of Melborne, Wash., starting from north to southeast using skid roads. The logs were hauled over the divide and dumped into the Chehelis River at Melbourne, formed into rafts and towed down the river to sawmills located in Aberdeen and Hoquiam.
The movement to railroad logging started about 1900. Rail lines were surveyed in early 1902 Starting in 1910, the Clemons Logging Company turned to using a railroad to transport the logs to the log dump The railroad right of way was xx miles of track. It included multiple timber deck bridges and at least one steel through truss bridge. There was one tunnel on the line, built near Melbourne. The railroad tunnel built on the front end of the Melbourne mainline in 1922-23
After the
company fell on hard times after World War I, Minot Davis negotiated a
deal in which Clemons could continue operating with Weyerhaeuser
assuming majority ownership of the company in 1919 (Clemons had 1/3 share) . The railroad was consolidated with the Melbourne and North River Railroad Company, an eight mile logging railroad extending from Melbourne to Montesano.The company at that time operated a 75 mile logging railroad with 44 trestles between Melbourne and Fall River.
Weyerhaeuser continued the business of cutting trees for ten more years
in what was known as the Clemons Branch Logging operation. In 1936, the Clemons Logging Company was merged into the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company. 1936 trucking was just startin in the area and 75-80 percent of the logs
were still on the railroad. Bulldozers, developed for the first time in
the thirties, made cheap roads possible, and they aided immesurably in
the colossal tasks of cutting a pattern of roads thru the forests. Old
growth was logged and the small second -growth was yarded through and
slashed and then burned.
The company was dissolved on June 29, 1937, employing some 400 men the
company cut an average of 500,000 board feet of timber daily.
In 1941, the original Clemons Logging Company logging area was dedicated as the first tree farm in Washington. Three hundred miles of trails and roads spidered the Clemons Farm.
Locomotives and Rolling Stock
Heisler locomotive No.2
three-truck Climax locomotive no. 3
Climax locomotive No.4
Climax locomotive
two-truck Shay locomotive No.2
Baldwin Mallet locomotive No.6
Reference:
Alanen, Donald Mathew, The Logger's Encyclopedia: A Road to the Past
Clemons Logging Company Photographic Archives
No comments:
Post a Comment