The Logging of a Giant for the World's Fair
A massive fir tree from Lewis County is destined for a grand role as an office exhibit at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
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.
Washington's forestry exhibit at the World's Fair will be very unique. United States Commissioner Perry Baker has been working for two months to find a fir tree fourteen feet in diameter from which could be cut a section that size. He recently located a tree near McCormick, Lewis county, which fills all the requirements. The first section will be twelve feet long and will be hollowed out so that when set on end it will make an office twelve feet in diameter. This will be the office of the commissioner in charge of the exhibit. Several sections will be cut from this tree, showing the grain of the wood, so as to convince the skeptical that the office is not glued together. Planks six inches thick, six feet wide and ten feet long will be used for booths, representing the four principal woods of the state: fir, cedar, hemlock and spruce.
“He found many trees that size at the butt, but when they went high enough to avoid the irregularities they would then be too small.”
At the turn of the century, Washington was positioning itself as a titan of the timber industry. This story highlights the scale of early 20th-century logging and the propaganda efforts used to promote the state's natural resources to a national audience.
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