The Skagit's First Steam Logging Railroad
A new industrial era for the Upper Skagit river as local logging ramps up production with a custom-built iron engine.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Minkler sawmill, situated on the Upper Skagit river, is now kept constantly employed sawing hardwood lumber of different kinds. They recently received a contract to furnish 80,000 feet of maple, a portion of which will be used on Gage's logging railroad, the balance going to Seattle. The locomotive for Gage's logging railroad on the Skagit arrived last week, and the road is already in operation. The engine was constructed at the Washington Iron Works, Seattle, at a cost of about $2,000. The logs are hauled a distance of one and a half miles to the river on a flat car capable of carrying three saw logs of ordinary dimensions. The locomotive and car run on wooden rails. This is the first steam logging railroad on the river, and is a great improvement upon the old method of logging with cattle. J. B. Ball has at present four logging camps in operation at different points on the Skagit river. At Sterling, where he has also a large general store, he has a logging camp, and on Nookeoham slough, about seven miles from Mt. Vernon, he has three camps running.
“This is the first steam logging railroad on the river, and is a great improvement upon the old method of logging with cattle.”
The transition from ox-teams to steam logging on the Skagit signaled the industrialization of Washington's old-growth forests, a shift that fundamentally altered the state's geography. Today, the remnants of these early railroad grades are often the only markers left of the once-bustling logging towns that powered the early regional economy.
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