The Oregon Story; Logging

Funding for a production of the Oregon story was made possible through a generous grant from the United States Department of Agriculture rural development. It is in Oregon sound. As natural as the voice of running water. I call. An instrument of life to some. Of destruction to others to the laager. It was just another tool. To increase production. And make his life easier.

Contradicting the fact. That nothing in the life of a logger has ever been easy. Yet for nearly 200 years. Immigrant Americans and Native American centuries before them lived among the trees and made them conform to their will. This is the story of four families that came early to the Oregon country. The Layard's of cruise and Curry County. The Rices of Linn County. Even some of what's going on. And the shores of Meirion Klamath County. Five to seven generations. They all answered to the name Margaret. The Lewis and Clark expedition at the beginning of the 19th century expose the rest of America to the natural beauty and bounty of Oregon.

But commerce came first with the arrival of the Pacific fur company and then the Hudson's Bay Company managed by Dr. John McLaughlin. He not only acquired beaver pelts the company's main business but also built the first Saw Mill in the north west at Fort Vancouver. The year was 18:27. The huge westward migration would begin nearly 15 years later. People escape the economically depressed regions of the Mississippi Missouri and Ohio River valleys. In search of a new life in a new land. They could only imagine. Charles Rice of Tennessee and 16 members of his family began the journey in 1850. It was a dangerous trip along the Oregon trail. Three members of the family would die

before reaching the Willamette Valley. The Rices settled near Brownsville and sweet home in a place called poly. Many other pioneers would head south dreaming of California gold with the federal government in Oregon populated and did its best to encourage these farmers to stay and work the land. A husband and wife did file a donation land claim for as much as six hundred and forty acres. Charles his son James Norvell Rice picked the site in holly not far from his dad. His descendants still live on the land today in the same farmhouse. He was a wounded veteran of the rogue Indian wars of 1855 and later served in the Oregon Legislature. James Norvell Rice was a man who loved horses and as the story goes traded his prize spotted pony to get a band of Indians to leave his claim and according to our grandfather

he claimed if he hadn't given this botted pony they had stolen it. Though his grandfather to. The races. Like most early pioneers were farmers. They cleared their land of tall timber to grow wheat not too long and they cleared it the traditional way by hand. Some of the pioneers like Andrew Wylie buried here beneath the timber on his original land claim not only farmed but sold lumber to neighbors. Wiley whose granddaughter married a rice built a sawmill on Wiley creek near sweet home in 1864. Probably the first Saw Mill in the area since most of the earlier mills were built on the Columbia or Willamette River. The first Americans who made lumber in Oregon were the pioneer farmers who come over the Oregon Trail. They needed it for their houses and barns and fences and outbuildings and some of the more

enterprising of them sold their surplus lumber to their friends and neighbors in their communities. And from this modest beginning highrises Oregon's most important industry. Little did Andrew Wylie realize that Boise Cascade Georgia-Pacific Weyerhauser and the other timber Giants would evolve from early Oregon meals like his. But the stakes were much higher along the Oregon coast and Columbia River even in the early 1850s. There was a burgeoning lumber trade with China Hawaii and Australia. Is. Ku's Bay was positioned to take advantage of an even larger market San Francisco and the driving force was gold. The people who went to California most them were unsuccessful as miners. But the ones who really made money were those who mined the miners by selling them food and lumber and other supplies.

And one of these is also made Simpson comes to goose Bay and 1856. He takes advantage of the Morriston hinterland of the fact that he's proposed to the water of the bay and the ever expanding market in California. These things make him a very very rich man. And the. Others cashed in to the lumber industry in Coos Bay would generate prosperity in the region for well over a century. Mean. James surely layer drove his oxen along the Oregon Trail and then raised more on his ranch near Roseboro. 1880. He took his bulls to work in the hills of Ku's County at a time when Ku's Bay was supplying lumber for another housing boom this time in Southern California making this Oregon community. One of the largest lumber shipping ports in the United States. Most of the time when they lock down they use bulls they call them Bushwackers.

They were tough on a lot of them stayed right out of town. Try it out with the bulls. They were fabulous men most of them were Swedes Norwegians. And you could shave with their axe and nobody touch their tools. They could really fall from them. They didn't get much production done but a lot of the trees if they fell. Had. Fifteen point a thousand feet. And maybe they would fall maybe three trees a day. They got probably 25 cents a thousand for fall on it. And then they would get about 35 cents for a buck and that. Was. John Shaw born in Canada a Scotch Irish parents immigrated to Oregon in 1875 settling near relatives east of St.. There he farmed for three years before buying a saw mill upstream from Sandy and

city in an area which later became the city of state. Nine years later in 1887 Shaw and a small group of investors started the sandy and lumbering company at Mill City. The first meal in the Sannie am Kanyon an area about to change forever with the introduction of the railroad. Well of course I am kind of like a lot of Western Oregon. It was steep and you couldn't log with oxen or horses so when the railroad came it allowed us to do two things one was lawyer Aeros to bring the logs to the mill side and brick and secondly for the railroad really with the lumber to market place where it could be shipped before then most of our industry is concentrated along the willow and the Columbia rivers where they had water transportation. John Shaw was still managing the logging and lumber operation there. When it became Curtis Lumber Company in 1899 and even later when it was bought by the Hammond lumber company. In 1996 he was promoted to run the hamin mill in

Astoria. One of the largest in the country. Here he stands proudly on board the tug which bears his name. Back in Mill City Shaw son Robert J Royall Shaw would take over the Hammond operations in 1910 J royal running the mill. It was turning out one hundred and twenty five thousand board feet a day. They did have a ledger with power Skidder operating in that area. This machine was a drug that logs through a railroad. It also low on the rail cars. They've also suspended logs over the steep canyon so we could deal with this very steep terrain we had. The mill was using about 20 rail car loads of logs a day and this was about the good of scooter before the Shaughs would leave Miles City. They would supervise the removal of over 1 billion board feet of timber from the s.a.m Canyon. In.

The even science first emigrated from Norway to Wisconsin where W.T. even Hsan worked in the woods and began saw him building his son only better known as Ojay came to Oregon and began a brilliant career in the lumber business in 1898 Ojay even bought into and remodeled the Portland Lumber Company which he ran successfully for six years until he became acquainted with one of Oregon's great timber industrialist SIMON BENSON. Benson another Norwegian immigrant had become very successful with his own logging operation. But he dreamed of rafting logs from the Columbia River all the way to San Diego. He hired O.J. even to get it done. His plan was not only to get his logs to the California market but to sell lumber as well from his own Sandiego move.

The first draft of a bill. Apparently they believed it was smooth in Oregon. My grandfather made the trip and. Tug to watch the action of the dogs in the sea. And they made eleven hundred mile trip to San Diego. They had already acquired property down there to build a deal. One of the bigger. Manufacturing plants in San Diego. Ships. Sometimes four. Or five rafts. Per year. By 1911 Ojay Even son along with his business partner was able to buy Simon Bensons catskin eye operation. The logger's there would now work for a new owner. Though. Even soon accumulated land and wealth in the class area. He remained a private person. Nothing like his former philanthropic boss and business associate Simon Bentson SIMON BENSON after he retired the lumber business really became Oregon's number one Susan.

He built the Bentson will tell. You it being a teetotally. Put all the brass fountains in downtown Portland that are still there because he's had a lawyer come to town. He should be a good drink of fresh water as well as alcohol. He built the company gorge hotel hand-mirror. The Dow Benson Polytechnic High School. And probably his greatest accomplishment. He was the one that pushed building the lumber highway and became the first state highway commissioner. Joe Layard followed in his father's footsteps and became a second generation logger in Ku's County. By now as the 1920s approach logging with oxen was on the wane and Joe began to use horses to drag the logs to water. But as in the Sandringham Canyon steam donkey and railroad would change the way

logs were brought to the market as would splashdown was used by the Layard's and others as a rough and tumble way to get logs to the mills. When Joe Laird retired his son Wilfer came right along behind him to become one of the better known early contract loggers in Cruz County. He was one of the smarter floggers. I think that that was in the country. He could go getting a job anywhere and especially on the cable. He understood cable logging real well. He could go into a stand of timber and he could figure out just by a look and just came natural told him where the road should go and right where to put the landing and right where to fall all the timber to lead and he'd be right in there and get the cutters lying down and he'd done it right from the bottom. It was a time when independent contractors like Willeford Layard known as hippos could make good money but they worked hard for those dollars and it was dangerous work

very dangerous. My uncle was killed. He was killed. He was 19 years old. He was killed the same day I was born. Thousands of men have died in Oregon. It's hard to say how many because there were few records kept in the early days. But since World War Two nearly twenty five hundred men have been killed in Oregon's woods or saw me who knows how many before that time. I was about nine or 10 years old. I was with Dad up in the blue ridge country and out of Fairview and they were pulled on a cold day. And they were four men at the back and they hooked on to a log. And they weren't clear and this law came down and these guys ran on. The floor and rolled over to. Kill them right there. And so they just drug them off the side and put them next to a tree and. Then kept

right on law. And. During the 1950s Oregon average 76 deaths a year and in the 1970s more loggers were killed in Oregon Washington and California. And police officers in all of the United States. Who work always has been and still is dangerous. Which prompted Wilfred Laird to leave his son this message in a book about his life and loggy I can say that it was not at all an easy way to go. Things. In late 19:20 J royal Shaugh left his job with HAMOND lumber company and mill city and began a new adventure for the Shaw family with a partner William Bertram Shaw moved south to the of fall and joined the bidding for Indian timber on the Klamath Reservation. The first unit was 10000 acres at

Solomon view near Perth. They built the Shaw bird from company saw me all at once. In Klamath Falls the short Bertram saw mill handled more than 750 million board feet of timber taken from the Klamath Reservation. The plans for expansion came to a screeching halt in 1930. Is. Not true. The Depression changed all that stopped everything dead. There was only one mill run for a while longer Rustam all 14 or don't flood. The depression laid out the whole economy United States including that of the state of Oregon. Our principal industry the timber industry is flattened 50 percent of the loggers are unemployed. Prices go to the lowest level since 1913 and about only 19 percent of the American timber industry is running at all. During the

Depression years. Royo Shaw had a small portable mill across the border in California a TANF step to handle small and diseased pine early 1930s when the depression forced the closure of his Klamath Falls mill. He decided to run full time. In 1935 Jay Roy Shaw son Lawrence left Stanford University to enter the family business becoming the third generation Shaw to manage a logging and building operation. Twenty two and one person who. Knows. Greenhorns Zimmerman will agree. The key to. Your progress. Toward. MLM operation would move much of. Good Burris says he may have been green with Laurence Shaw would see six hundred million board feet of pie leave TNA stuff before closing the mill in 1945. It. Is.

Credible. More. Booze. Drug given to a central point. Where. She. Then after we go to pile of the trucks cleared. We always had to use trucks. For primitive trucks or were just ordinary for. Following the Nesta and World War 2. The charge would move back to Klamath Falls and begin another 50 years in the Oregon sawmill business. All right. Charles Rice son of James Norvell spent much of his life logging and packing supplies to timber cruisers who spent weeks in the woods measuring the trees for big companies. His son Charles Leonard would become the fourth generation Rice to work in the woods but he would have to survive the depression first.

My dad the first day I remember working would be for the WPA. He drove team up around Lost Lake or lost prairie and into that country. Years later he went to fallen timber. A fell timber for Weyerhauser Noah and an outfit named Skagit inland. He fell timber for several years by hand and them days. I've heard father talk about what they call lays for a tree. You went out and if it was going to hit the edge of a stump you sheared dad off or you had to put your tree where you wanted it or you didn't have a job. That was the size of. If you go to break in September in them days you didn't have a job. You had to save it like Earlier Rice families Leonard was large as demanding as logging was. It also provided. Well apparently it was a pretty good father who raised about nine of us. He didn't

go hungry we didn't have the best to eat but we we done fine. Thanks to my mother and him. As. OJ even Hsan continued running his logging operation through the 1920s it was a time of heavy railroad logging and the camps were filled with men whose job it was to get the word out. Was known as the days of highball and steam and they certainly got the wood out and they did it with steam equipment. In many respects their life was more dangerous than it was in the camps. The pioneers used oxen to move along. The reason it was more dangerous was we now had moving lines and flying tokers the lookout for. End of the week came when a room down the Mulligan Karns. I'm told that some I'm. Headed to the barbershop to get a shower or bath a

haircut. But on the other hand some I'm heading for the various beer halls that we're here. At one time. They said that there were seven churches in town but there were also about 7 7 beer dispensing places to take during the Depression years. OJ even Sun went south to manage the saw mill in San Diego leaving the logging operation to his son Willard a World War One veteran and Stanford Law School graduate who also found time to serve as mayor of catskin eye for seven years. As was the case for most Americans. The winds of World War 2 brought change for the even since Willard his brother Clarence and several other investors bought an existing lumber operation and renamed it the WANNA lumber company manage throughout the war by Willard Even son and his brother.

What World War Two did was put everybody back to work. And there was such a shortage of men. That I actually started long working years old. Everybody to be a lawyer it was all done by the Germans or Japanese. The bills were the ones who were on line during the Depression years the twenties and thirties and they are the ones that had to do double shifts 10 hour shifts to produce the lumber that is required for the war effort. At the end of the war the other stockholders felt that the plant was too big and it wouldn't run. My dad and uncles decided that it ought to be run. It could be run and so they purchased the interest of the other stockholders and it became owned by the event. When World War II ended Laurent's Shah returned to Klamath Falls. Purchased an old

mill that Lakey water remodeled it and formed the Mohawk lumber company to even since Shaw saw a rosy future. The post-war building boom would need lumber and the federal government was opening its forest to logging something it had seldom done before. Thomas Shaw Lawrence's son and president of Modan lumber. The war ended and some of the Mills didn't see a future. Didn't have a vision to see a future. Had a good run so they quit which left more timber for other people that were still around. That translated into profits and during the 1950s the Shaws did rather well as did the Klamath tribe which liquidated this reservation. Turning the trees into a national forest in 1968 67 68 we decided to build a new sawmill and it was a real showplace. A lot of people came to see it

and it worked really well for us. We hit it right after it was started. We hit some real good markets. We were buying vinyl quite a bit of temper and up to that time and into the early 70s. There was. There was a real good. Good period in the summer. For. The 80s early 80s where. You had high interest rates up to 21 percent. That. Put a real damper on the market. Times are really tough. Nobody was buying. Or building houses. Following World War II and in education in San Francisco Willards son Edvard even EHRSSON return to class and I don't work in the mill It wasn't until it closed in 1964. You've been struck out on his own.

We had one truck. We had a crane we used and hooks into the most dangerous thing you could probably use the low log. And I had a ideate cat with my family purchased an arch for that. So we did cataloguing to start with. Edvard even soon had two sons who would eventually enter the logging business. Willard who would handle the trucking and Eric who would become a forester. Of. Course the place to start is chocker setting and they did their share of tilter setting. And they did. Timber falling in love with him for quite a while. It's. About 1977. I asked the boys I asked him Do you think you want to maybe

carry on in the morning. They both said yeah. Willard drove a truck. And. Did that quite a few years. So he's had experience with the. Long haul. I was fortunate enough when I was younger to have the trust of my father to drive a semi truck and that was still my interest was the trucking industry or the trucking portion of it. Because I run the yard or the load just about everything. Of course the one thing was that both of them had their service time out of the way. And they had had. Experiences in the service. And so they had an idea of maybe some of the other things that might go on but. They seemed to be interested in coming into the business and carrying on.

All. The way through eighth grade. That's all I started to work when I was 13. Type barking priorly right down here. Crawfordsville the first job I ever had. I got to sit in a foot. For tight bar and I could sometimes if I put in a long day I can make $3. When I went there was all Spahr trees there was no town where I went to work which was. An m log and. I went from the Chokher sent to the landing. And just a little while I was second loop and then later years I had need for a lot of years was shovel snow man and when the Grapel come in why I finally got out and I stayed there for 30 years. You had to work hard. You were

there and you didn't. Depend on someone else to do your job or. Are you work there. That was a good honest day's work. I mean. Surely léa took his first job in the woods when he was 10 filling in as a whistle Ponk when one of his father's crew members came to work drunk. He worked in the woods alongside his dad during World War II. But when the Korean War came along he joined the Marine Corps to fight. That finished he came home to work once again with his father but soon decided to strike out on his own. Spending most of his time near Gold Beach. I got a sled yarder and so I started rerig and trees and I got some good man. And so I started logging and then eventually I took the hoist off of that sled then put it on a steel tree and then we moved up

in the Agnes area and then we had to get another yarder and then we had to get more cats. And then we had to get trucks and then we had to get more men and then we had to get more of this. It was a family affair with Shirley when they were big enough. They went to work in the woods. I think when I was probably about four 14 they put me on the rigging crew with a bunch older guys who happen to be one particular summer when everything was kind of slow and there wasn't a lot of work to do. So I kind of put it around set quite a few chokers. We had all four or five boys that we put through school summer Dr. Sohmer attorneys in the summer this summer that summer managers of big outfits now and now and we paid them top wage because most of the time their dads either workforce or we knew their dads.

My mom did actually drive log and truck for a while. I don't I don't know if back then you needed a CDL license she just hopped in a truck and always she'd go and she did a lot of road Hallen. I had the wife out there to work on and we had the girls out there to work on. And we had every man on the job working. But one day in 1986 Shirley Layard fourth generation logger had enough and he quit just like that. I just told him one day she was going to trigger Friday and I want everything on the landing and I'm Quinten and it was kind of tough. But I don't regret it today. But when pressed further Shirley layered long for the day of the handshake deal. When a man's word was gold. He was not cut out. For corporate lodging. The big males are all run from New York City and it's cut throat right on down the line. And if you don't show a big profit or if

you can't get this done cheaper there will be somebody on your chair the next morning. And they didn't care about who you were what you were or the man or anybody else. Shortly after his father left the logging business Jeff Lehrer did the same to run a jet boat on the Rogue River ending five generations of layered logging. It was a good time I thought to make another career move. I don't know if I made the right one but we definitely enjoy what we do here. I do. When Champion International closed its Big Gold Beach mill in 1984 it cost hundreds of jobs. Now as father and son prepare a lot for Jeff's new home overlooking the road Jeff has his vision for the future. Tourism right here. Between between these these two companies sailboats and Jersey road jets. We've probably run 120000 people through this community every summer that

ride on these tour votes. And with the fishing also. Bro river has been famous for its salmon fishing since the 1880s. It will tourism save gold beach or any other logging community in the state where it is close. Tourism is the third largest industry in Oregon today. But tourists have been coming here since the 19th century. One of the most famous was Roger Kipling who fished the Clackamas River for steelhead and then proclaimed. I have lived a lot of our timber towns today would like to get into tourism. And certainly a place like the Rio river. I'm sure we're very successful in doing that. But there are many places where the mills are dotted about the countryside that the modern tourists probably would not be interested in seeing. All. That logging was the easiest work in the world. And. I told Ray. Is

kind of wanted him to stay out of stuff like. I graduated on a Friday night and I started work for my uncle Monday morning. In the log in. When I started we were still logging a lot of the old growth timber government timber which is nice big old girl stuff. And you know they've shut most of that down of the volume of the federal government timber. And so now we're going through the Second World The smaller. For him la. And they utilize everything now down to five four inch long

which like before yeah you just left that I was just brush cushions off the side and leave it. Now we take you take everything. Right down to true picture of normalcy. When I. Get. Home. And. When the weather is wet and I can't run the scooter or cat they have me out full Reagan on the. Garters. Her. Sitting and calling Reagan. And. The. Dry weather comes I get on my scooter. It's got a set of grapples on the on the back. And I just go out and grapple my own dogs that don't need a truck or behind it just crap my mouth friend. From out there. Myself. It's been a good living. It's hard living work hard. I enjoy that. I'm an outdoors person and

I enjoy being out there. The uncle that John went to work for was Charles his younger brother Robert Reiss who works with his own two sons in their contract logging business. On the side of. The. Story. They owned their own equipment hire their own man and harvest trees for large timber owners like Weyerhauser. It's a cutthroat business. In the 1990s and Robert's son Chris has a fallback position. His two men went to Oregon State and I worked summers and then log in to pay for school. And there are a couple of years off I just worked state logging but I finally finished up and got my degree in 1980 and passed the boards and so I'm a license forms. Robert Rice has spent his lifetime working in the woods living job to job

hoping to make ends meet and still have something left for his son. It's. Been really tough for us the last year. To stay in business and. With the true situation. There is. There's not that much money and you're not able to pay. That amount of wages that you shared to get good people. I think right now there's lots of logger's and. There's also lots of opportunities for our crew. We've lost several people to. The industry and in town on all new and. Rare Metals. And stuff like that. Contract loggers will invest over a million dollars per site. But if they go under There's no way to get the money back. That tower about a half a million. The l'amore. Around three forty fifty thousand dollars. The shovel. Same.

Route. Probably three 350. But what it's worth today is next to. I enjoy logging the future I guess you could say it's cloudy. You know I guess the 80s were lots of work around and there's not as much nowadays. So it's a competitive industry. Competitive. And we've got to pay our bills and if it is important we cap. Well then we won't be able to stay in the business. Charlie Reiss fifth generation logger has retired. It's been good to me. I had a raised a family and we never had nothing that you're not like that we always you always own your own home. And we had what we needed all the time. We didn't really go without. Just like today we were still you know I guess.

I can't claim I should put it that way. I did a lot. Years past that a lot of really it's been pretty good to me. As his grandfather retired Nathan Reiss seventh generation Oregonian and two time state high school wrestling champion from Sweet Home began his career in the woods. It lasted just 30 days before the accident. I just step back and fell and hit my head hit my back some on the way and bruised my spinal cord and lost feeling in my legs for a while. It's coming back I'm walking on stuff now so feeling should be back in time hopefully feeling is slowly coming back for. So. We're hoping for a full recovery.

And he's hoping maybe to get to go to school now and see what see what his options are. He's one of his options provided his health comes back is to keep working in the woods. I can do for the rest of my life. My dad really don't want me to he wants me to go and maybe he wants me to play sports and stuff which I'd like to do stuff but it's something I enjoy doing if I can go to school or can get a job I can I can do it for the rest of my life. I don't I don't tell him what he can do but if he wants to do it he can do it. I'm not going to tell him no. And he wins. I would like to see him try other things things that I didn't try. Rice logging is steeped in tradition. Old second growth probably around during the time of Charlie Rice's great grandfather's mill just two miles from here is coming down. And as they fall spring board holes in the stumps are reminders of where their

forefathers had cut a century before. At a time when environmentalism was a word never heard nor a concept consider. Today. It generates a larger family discussion. I guess maybe you could see along the path give us that bad reputation of going out there and just raping the hills. Nowadays we would take everything we would clean up real good take care of it when it wouldn't. So I'm not totally against it. It's just that I feel it's important that we make sure that we just don't go all the way long and everything and not. Taking care of the earth. My sister she's kind of like an environmentalist and she has her her values and stuff. I mean she don't like clear cut. And when I hear the word clerk I think of ugliness. As soon as we move out there in near clearing it and getting it replanted in the streams there are very.

Very critical on how we log across the stream so we don't Dammy to leave lots of trees for the fish. The habitat there. So I think we're doing a real good job of working with what the environmentalist want us to do to protect the environment. When we weren't on out there destroy the environment we want to protect it. I live out there. I mean I love it out there in the outdoors. And you know I don't want to see it destroyed. I think that everybody uses wooden the products they produce and I think that you know. That we need to do that to live in most cases. But I think we need to be careful what we do. Concern there is because it's not going to be here forever. It takes a long time to reply and stuff like that. So she has her beliefs and she sticks to her I'm proud I ever actually see really good at school. She got her priorities. And where are Nathan's priorities. Will he fully recover from his spinal injury. Will he

continue to law or will he break the chain of seven Oregon generations and leave the woods forever. In 1987 John chaws great great grandson joined the family business. Tom Hamshaw Tommy to his grandfather would enter about the same time as the symbol of this new era of environmentalism. The Great Northern spotted owl. It wasn't long before Tom and his father would have to face the realities of the 1990s. The federal government under political and legal pressure was beginning to severely restrict the selling of trees from National Forest. And we were dependent on public timber for a few years. We went on the outside and around on mostly private timber. In about 94 we realized that that wasn't going to last forever and we didn't see

a future of running out what we spent a lifetime building up. So in 1995 one hundred and seventeen years of Shaw Mills came to an end. Bodach lumber closed its last saw mill earnings saw mills a lot of fun laying off 185 people isn't a lot of fun and all that especially when you've had the community ties that we've had. For the last 50 or so years in Klamath Falls made a really difficult. There are many reasons why Oregon saw mills close. Competition. Changes in technology and changes in public policy during the 1960s and 70s Congress passed several laws designed to preserve our national forests and wildlife and in the 1980s and 90s the courts enforced these laws effectively shutting down much of the logging on federal land. Reversing a policy of harvesting the

National Forest which began following World War II and putting the Shaughs and many other Oregonians out of the sawmill business and out of work. The federal timber harvest was reduced by about 75 percent the state of Oregon. This in effect caused the loss of about 30 percent of all Milham plywoods in this state. What has happened to shaughs is not unusual is happening all over the region. Of. Western Oregon and Washington. So the Shaws are out of the sawmill business. They still own ten thousand acres of timber and have made the decision to stay in log. That decision ultimately puts the future of Modan lumber and the Shaw legacy in the hands of 31 year old Tom Shaw. But I'd like to have a stand of trees like you see around us now for my children. And I'd like to have them have the same. Opportunities that I've had and to manage this and to make a living at it and. To get out and enjoy it.

The trees fell this morning or. Ponderosa pine trees somewhere around 120 years of age. They were here. They were probably saplings some. Maybe. Five six seven inches in diameter when my great grandfather Jay Royal was up here logging in the 20s. We feel that there's times where we need to go in and take some of those trees out to open up the stand and to allow regeneration in younger trees to release and begin growing to their potential. There have been good times and bad times and during the Shaw family and the lumber and timber business and I think the good times outweigh the bad times and we've we've had a good good ride in it. I think about my children and their future in this industry and and I think that's one of my main focus is now is to ensure that there's some preservation there for for them to continue and their grandchildren. Yeah I'd like to see another five

generations in this industry. I don't know. If that's a possibility or not for that. That's something I'd like to see happen. Oh I think it's possible. But it will be conditioned by several things. One where each year we seem to find more regulation of what is done. Even private port poppys. Was certainly a fire insect infestation would change our whole attitude what we're going to do. There's a tax liabilities downstream as we passed poverty from one generation to the other that can be oppressive. And make it more viable to do something else and then maybe some generations playing Guitar Boogie and sell out to somebody as well off from big dollars. It is very difficult for us to determine what our grandchildren might want to do with those timber holdings. 18 year old Scott even said is learning the business of his great great grandfather Ojay

he's learning at the way of all logger's from the ground up setting chokers and just learning as I go. Everybody I work with teaches me new stuff every day. And it's pretty exciting. I've been learning a lot lately. Scott's father Eric is the chief forester for even logging supervising the thousands of acres the family has acquired over the past 65 years. On our tree farm. We have approximately 22000 acres of timber land and we log anywhere between 300 to 350 acres a year. At the rate we're cutting in the way that we're managing it right now it should go on forever. So that the next generations can continue on. And do the same as what we're doing. We have to harvest it all at the same time to get it to grow properly. Pine You can have in an even aged stand and it works fine. But.

In western North Western Oregon many of us for it works out the best to clear cut and and start from scratch. It's like a farmer when he harvest corn you know he harvests all of it. I've seen some. Big changes on how timbers harvested. They got stroke the Lammers processors. And. That machine can grab the log and measure it cut the limbs off the bucket in the long lengths. To it in an inch or two of being right on them but. Right now they're doing a lot of work with these little processors and forwarders and stands that are about 25 years old and they're

taking small sawlogs and pump logs out of the stands and then receiving some revenue for. Eric Vinson's other son David is studying forest engineering at Oregon State University. At a place in time much different from where his grandfather and father were school. And a lot of newer things down there. I. Think it's given some focus a little bit more towards the environment maybe then that's a bigger issue trying to make sure that future generations have some wood and trees and or not be unselfish. And that's where we're thinking about the next generations. But I'm benefiting from the generations before me. So if that thought process continues then it will keep going. My family background that's something that's pretty important to me. They knew that at the time my great grandfather that he wasn't ever going to

see a crop come off of the land that he had purchased. But he knew that the future generations were going to benefit from his actions and. Where. He'd been successful now because of what he did in the past. And I think that's something that's pretty mean and. Impresses me a lot. I think that I'll continue in the business and do what the past generations have done for me. I'll do that for the future generations hopefully try and expand a little bit with purchasing more land when the opportunity arises. And so that my kids and their kids have a little something to look forward to. I was given to me. Whether they even sons or the Shaws will be able to continue their logging legacy is

questionable. Clearly it will be difficult. We'll never go back to the days of hundreds of small operators making up the forest products industry in Oregon. The future belongs to a few large multinational corporations who have the resources to control this industry. It is possible that a few small operators may keep on going but they'll have to be very well educated very astute to market demands very up to date and technology in order to survive in this terribly competitive world market of today. Certainly Oregon's timber industry is declining. High tech has become the state's number one employer and forest products no longer lead. Oregon export. It's also clear that Oregon has the best tree growing land in the world.

How or if those trees are harvested will depend largely on Oregonians. An. Economy is like a three legged stool. The past Oregon's economy has been based on agriculture and for a third leg so high tech has been good for our economy. I would hope. That we can continue to manage our force in such a manner that we will address the environmental concerns and to produce wood fiber for the world. We can do that better than anybody else. Now whether we are able to continue doing this over the depend totally on public perception. The modern forest products industry is a lot different than it was a hundred or 50 years ago. So we think that technology markets working conditions and nobody in the business today would do things like they did in the old days. And it is true that a lot of problems along the way climate has degraded and sparked a lot of people killed or

injured in the industry. But I think it would be a mistake for for us today to fly to people of 19:00 or 1940 or 1930. Our standards. We must remember. Those were their times and their practices. And their. Pastimes. But all in all it's a kind of glorious story modern Oregon which is the envy of many people. They wouldn't have been the organ it is today without the contributions of this major industry. You know. I stood on a hill overlooking a violation stand of timber over a line. And I thought the young man boy used to well I guess that's the way nature had it all.

This giant timber industry has burst through. Time is over forever. No is. No new members. That all rewards good news from Brown Neumar the. Harvester. Were Warned to get a ring of act. This way shape or cross all these men pulled by hand. The cannons are filled. With us but are in the. Same zone. John was just visiting. Over and over the line. What's the all time high climber as he stands by look.

At a giant steel to your head into this guy's. Eyes. Good luck getting a valet at a new stand up timber overtake. And I thought a young man replacing the I guess that's the way nature had it all. Funding for production of the Oregon story was made possible through a generous grant from the United States Department of Agriculture rural development