Historic Hood River
Blowing Stumps
5-17-2011
Notes
Clearing land for farming has never been easy work. This man and his dog are inspecting a large stump that has recently been blasted with dynamite. We’re not sure exactly where or when this image was taken, but to anyone with experience working the land in this valley the message is timeless.
A longtime valley resident tells me the railroad used to pay the Japanese and Chinese workers with small parcels of land and sticks of dynamite. She says that’s how her grandfather acquired and cleared the land for his farm near Dee. If you have a family story about clearing land for farming in the Hood River Valley, please share it with us.
Charlott
There were those farmers that were still blasting stumps as late as the 1950’s.
Charlott
My father loved to blast stumps. He would dig out around some so that he could get his dynamite way under the core of the stump. How he another others kept from blowing themselves right out of the world I don’t know. When I was about 10 to 12 he blew a pine tree stump in our front yard and blew wood all over. What would those "old" farmers think of the process now, when they cut the tree down, get that big machine and just lift those stumps out of the ground. Can you imagine how long it took to clear an acre of land destined for an orchard. Rock removal, tree falling and hauling then digging and blasting and cleaning up that mess.