The Logging Frontier’s Monstrous Spruce
A Wishkah River logger claims a record-breaking tree that hints at the scale of the region's ancient forests.
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.
J. W. Heron, the Wishkah river logger, recently cut what he claims is the largest spruce ever harvested in this or any other country. It grew on the ranch of Jack Wilson, about a mile above Grand Forks. The tree was eight feet through at the butt, 170 feet to the first limb without a single knot, and scaled 111,800 feet of lumber.
“It grew on the ranch of Jack Wilson... was 8 feet through at the butt, 170 feet to the first limb and without a knot.”
The massive spruce trees that built the Pacific Northwest are mostly gone, and the giant stands that once defined the Wishkah Valley are now mostly second-growth. Today’s forestry debates over habitat and conservation contrast sharply with this 1894 pride in 'scaling' a record-breaking behemoth.
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