The Morning a Tow Rope Nearly Cost Appel Bros. a $600 Raft
A launch propeller seized, the boom was waiting, and a raft of poles was suddenly drifting toward disaster on the Pend Oreille.
Appel Bros. had a narrow escape from losing a raft of poles valued at about $600 last Friday morning. They were endeavoring to land the raft in their boom when the tow rope caught in the propeller of the launch that was handling the raft and stopped the engine. It took hard work to land the raft against the old lumber docks to save it from breaking up, but they succeeded in doing so.
“It took hard work to land the raft against the old lumber docks to save it from breaking up, but they succeeded in doing so.”
Log drives and river booms built Newport's timber economy, and the old lumber docks this item mentions have long since vanished. The story is a reminder that the region's prosperity once depended on dangerous, weather-timed work on the water—an economy that has largely disappeared even as the river remains.
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