The River Full of Logs: Newport's Timber Boom Goes Mechanical
From Parker Mountain to Ione the Pend Oreille is choked with logs bound for the mill — and the Panhandle Lumber Co. is trading horses for donkey engines.
From a point about four miles north of Newport, where the Fidelity Lumber Co. has a camp taking off the timber on the property of the Bornite Mining Co., to Ione, logging camps are encountered at frequent intervals along the river bank. The Dalkena Co. also has several camps, the remainder of the camps being engaged in work for the Panhandle Lumber Co. From Parker Mountain to Ione the stream is full of logs floating down to the catch boom of the Ione mill, where they are hoisted over the dam into the mill pond.
The Panhandle has this week established two more camps, one under Robt. McInnis at the mouth of LeClerc creek, and one at the mouth of Indian creek, about eight miles north of Newport. The steamer Spokane has delivered the material for these two camps this week. The camp at Indian creek will log close to the river, and the Spokane delivered three donkey engines to be used in hauling logs to the river. With the high price of hay and grain to combat it is likely that the use of engines for logging purposes in this section in the place of horses will be greatly extended.
“From Parker Mountain to Ione the stream is full of logs floating down to the catch boom of the Ione mill.”
A century ago the Pend Oreille was a working river, its current carrying the region's payroll to the Ione mill. Today the same corridor is watched for different reasons — salmon recovery, recreation and the legacy of clearcut hillsides — but the question of who gets to harvest the woods, and how, still divides the valley.
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