Historic Hood River

Notes

This unassuming stump sitting high in the forest west of Hood River tells a piece of the story of Stanley Smith Lumber Company Camp 3.

Based on a study of these newly uncovered images of Camp 3, as well as a consultation with several local logging experts, I visited a site believed to be the general location of Camp 3 this weekend.  To be clear, the general location has long been known (it even appears on maps), and archeologists have been to that site on multiple occasions to prepare report prior to construction of improvements nearby.  These reports make it clear little remains from Camp 3, even to their trained eyes.  There are signs of logging, but the exact site of whatever structures were at Camp 3 were not at all clear.  But we have one important thing archeologist almost never have:  a photograph of the site from the era of interest.

The site today is covered with 100 year old timber.  I was accompanied by someone who has been to the site many times in the past 30+ years.  Even during that time he has seen major floods wash through the area, significant growth in the forest, and significant decay of older features.  Mostly what has survived is stumps, so the stumps will have to tell the whole story.

The forest at this site has a mixture of cedar, fir, and other conifers.  The cedars are clustered near the creek (they like water), and their stumps last far longer than the other conifers.  I believe the only stumps at this site left from the logging over 100 years ago are cedar. In the old image of the camp you see lots of stumps.  The cedar stumps are the deeply furrowed ones– they look almost sculptural.

Many of the remaining cedar stumps show two signs of logging:  holes for springboards and grooves from the steel cables.  You can see many good photos of springboards here.  This image shows what’s left after >100 years of a springboard hole in a cedar stump.  We found at least a dozen trees at this site with marks like this.  We also found some with pronounced grooves where the stump was used like a pulley to change the direction of wire rope from a steam donkey, and a few very old pieces of milled lumber.

We know springboards went out of use when chainsaws arrived after the Camp 3 era.  One graphic example confirming the age of these stumps:  a cedar stump about 6-8 feet in diameter was badly decayed almost to the ground, with a cedar and a hemlock tree each 18-24″ in diameter growing out of the center.  A single splinter of the original stump survived rising 4 feet next to the younger trees, and it shows part of a springboard hole in it.

Even armed with a photograph, it’s not easy to place the exact location of the buildings on the current landscape.  The log pond is gone, floods have removed the earthen dam, there are no signs of the flume, and there are no signs of the buildings which were built for temporary occupation. The clues we worked with were the lay of the land and the rock fields you can just make out in the photograph.  We debated a few theories.  I believe we know within a couple of hundred feet where the camp sat.

Can we get closer?  I think the answer may lie in the stumps.  The old image shows many stumps, and the high resolution version lets you identify which are cedar.  I wonder if carefully mapping the cedar stumps remaining would let you find one of the clusters we see in the image?

Editorial note:  I’ve been circumspect in identifying where this site is located.  It’s not a big secret, but I don’t want to put information on the internet which will encourage people to go up and disturb the site.  If you’ve figured out where this is and decide to visit, please don’t remove anything.  If you have mapping and surveying skills, send me a map of the cedar stumps!

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