The River’s Revenge: How a Flood Saved the Jam Company Millions
While laborers toiled for months to clear the Snoqualmie Falls log jam, a sudden freshet swept away their equipment and valuable timber—yet paradoxically cleared the river faster than human hands ever could.
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.
A gentleman just from the 'skagit' country informs us that the Jam Company will continue operations for the next two months as they have during the past winter. The upper jam will be entirely removed, and the river opened up for navigation by the first of June. This is an entirely unexpected result. When work was commenced on the jam, it was considered hardly possible for it to be removed in less than a year's time, at least.
But 'fortune has favored the brave.' The freshet came in just the nick of time and accomplished more in a few hours towards the removal of the jam than the doughty men could by months of hard labor. But it was no respecter of persons; for it took all before it, including a float of valuable logs which the men had taken out and had moored near the shore, along with their tools, etc. Thus the company sustained considerable damage by what otherwise resulted in great public benefit.
The whole mass, as we stated at the time, went rushing down the stream before the current like a mill tail, and lodged in the South Fork of the river. The logs went down with the old roots and debris, and are all lodged in the narrow channel, with the exception of a few that were stranded on the river bank. The Jam Company are now engaged collecting together their lost logs, and will save them all or nearly all, though at the outlay of considerable time and hard labor. In the portion of the jam that went down there was considerable heavy timber, and in the place where it is now lodged can easily be converted into logs. The advantage which the freshet has given them for getting out these logs, our informant thinks, will quite compensate them for their loss. As soon as they have finished collecting up this timber they will commence on the jam again.
In 1877, clearing the Snoqualmie Falls log jam was a monumental engineering feat that defined the region's timber economy. Today, we face similar 'infrastructure' challenges in the Pacific Northwest: removing old dams to restore salmon habitats and managing river flows against the backdrop of climate change-induced flooding. The irony remains the same—nature is both the obstacle and the solution.
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