*** Source: History and Business Directory of Humboldt County, Lillie E. Hamm, November 1890, Eureka, Cal. *** ---page 053-- [ad] Photograph and Autograph Albums at J. E. Mathews [ad] HISTORY OF HUMBOLDT COUNTY 3 making shutes. This is very expensive. As the roads and shutes are advancing a small army aided by several donkey engines engage in hauling these monster logs to the shutes where they are slid down to a point accessible for a team of from twelve to sixteen oxen, and are then hauled to the railroad landing place for transportation to the Bay. The work in the logging camps is really the most important, for here an immense amount of money may be lavishly expended, or a great saving made. So the most experienced men are engaged for this work. It is a most picturesque scene to witness the operations in a logging camp. The giant redwoods, forming the outer boundary, towering for 200 feet in the air as if looking solemn and sad at the destruction of their comrades, which are lying prone, cut into logs, charred and divested of their foliage. The donkey engine puffs and blows as it hauls the stubborn logs towards the shute. A boy leading a horse with canvass bags filled with water on his back threads his way up along the hillsides. He carries the water to tubs placed at intervals of fifty feet along the shutes. He carries the water to tubs placed at intervals of fifty feet along the shutes. The log which the donkey engine was hauling arrives at the shute; it begins to slide, and men with tin pails in their hands run along dashing water in front of the logs. A loud crash is heard--it has struck a log gone before it. A sullen and powerful train of oxen are slowly hauling several timbers over the greased skids; they arrive at the landing place and the logs are rolled by jack- screws and a donkey engine, with block and tackle, onto the short logging trucks. A train of twelve or fourteen cars is rapidly loaded, the engine whistles and goes thundering on its way to the log dump. This scene goes on without intermission from 6 a. m. until 6 p. m., except for a half hour at noon time. The men engaged in logging have their cabins and cookhouse, barns, blacksmith and carpenter shops in the near neighborhood of where they are at work, and these camps have all the appearance of thriving villages. The eating-houses are under the charge of a good cook--a woman usually--and the food is always of the best, though plain; plenty of meat, vegetables, bread, coffee, tea or milk with cakes and pastry, well cooked and wholesome. Leaving the logging camps we will go with the train, hauled by a Baldwin locomotive over a most substantially built and well ballasted roadbed; the rails are usually steel, ranging from thirty- six to fifty-two pounds to the yard measurement. Along the edges of the streams strong embankments are built, over the creeks and rivers are truss bridges and trestle-work. Hillsides are cut into, and for four or five miles a ride is enjoyed through the wild scenery of a heavily timbered canyon, across or aside of some clear running stream, then the train rapidly approaches the Bay and is a few minutes later standing at the log dump. This is constructed out of timbers of a thickness of one or two feet, and probably 16 feet long, placed standing at a distance of two feet apart for probably one hundred feet. The blocks and chains which support the logs on the cars are removed, a jack screw is applied and in a few minutes the entire train load of logs is lying in the slough ready to be made into rafts by the loggers and raftsmen for towage to the mill. Here is also a number of cabins and cookhouse for the men employed in this department. A stern-wheel steamer tows the raft down the Bay several miles to the log boom adjoining the mill. At [ad] Gibbad & Lever CARRY A COMPLETE LINE OF Undertakers' Supplies Third and H Sts Pioneer Bdg, Eureka [ad] ---end---