Historic Hood River
Cookhouse at Mill A
4-12-2016
Notes
Mill A was the mill town at the top of the Broughton Flume. We’re told this was the cookhouse at the mill, and the woman on the left was Elizabeth Davis Kitchell’s mother. [Ed. Note: Mill A was actually on the Little White Salmon, and fed the flume for the Oregon Lumber Company mill at Viento]
L.E.
Wish we knew some of the names.
I have heard stories, and Buzz might know more about this,…. if a camp had a good cook, male or female, they ruled the roost because no one wanted to loose a good cook.
Arthur….for category, you should probably put [Skamania County].
Arthur
Thanks L.E. I was thinking Mill A was on the White Salmon, but of course it’s on the Little White Salmon in Skamania County.
Buzz
Have seen bad cooks-"gut robbers"- literally run out of a cookhouse crying. The biggest sin was to run out of food. Never saw a female head cook in Alaska. Good cooks were mandatory. On the other hand, there were the "tramp loggers" who were looking for any excuse to pull up stakes and go to town-hot cakes were too round or the beds too soft. Tramp loggers could find new jobs readily as they generally took the hardest jobs, worked the hardest, and were more knowledgeable about different ways to mow down a patch of timber. Different world today.
lee
Elizabeths mothers name was Isabella Youngston Dimmick born in 1885 died in 1937 she was married 3 times Davis, Coffenberry and then Charley Schmitt he was probably in this pic but I can’t see him. I have other pics of him logging at mill A early 1900s.
Kenn
Willard was the mill town at the top of the flume just below the flume dam, was it at one time called mill A?
Scott Cook
Arthur, I agree with Kenn…Willard was at the top of Broughton Flume….Mill A was at the top of Viento’s flume.
Arthur
Willard and Mill A are about a mile apart, both on the Little White Salmon. The Broughton flume is the one which ended near the Hatchery, while the Oregon Lumber Company flume ended in Drano Lake, where logs were barged across to Viento. I believe Kenn and Scott are correct that logs from Mill A went to Viento, and logs from Willard went to Broughton mill. I don’t think they overlapped in operation at all, but I’m not sure.
L.E.
There was a flume from Willard, (the Willard’s didn’t live there yet) where Moss Creek joins the Little White Salmon, to Drano Lake for cordwood and posts.
Then the Chenowith shingle mill was built in the same area, but the shingles were hauled to the boat landing at Drano.
Willard settled in the area in 1891.
Mill A was a flat area with homesteads. The Oregon Lumber Co. moved in their Mill A, built a flume to Drano and rafted the lumber to Viento. Mill B was on the east side of the Little WS. Logging at Mill A was done by railroad. Logging at Mill B was done by horse over skid roads.
Mill A burned and was not rebuilt.
The Chenowith Co. (at Willard) dissolved, but the shingle mill was once again started up by Emil Willard to fill an order for shingles. When the order was completed the mill once again shut down.
A lumber broker, named Jones, leased the shingle mill. He also built a mill at Drano Landing and the shingle bolts were delivered by flume.
For a short time Sam Samson leased the shingle mill.
This information comes from a little booklet written by Clara Willard Tobin who was born in 1900 at the Willard home.
========
George Broughton was founder of Broughton and Wiggins Lumber Company on the Willamette River.
Pacific Power and Light had built an earthen dam on the Little WS in 1913 near Willard. This pool of water from the dam, provided enough propulsion and Broughton and Associates built a flume to carry log cants from Willard down to the Columbia. The first flume built in 1913 went from Willard to Drano. A second flume was built between 1921 and 1923 and extended the nine miles to Hood. It crossed private ground which had to be leased.
The price of lumber dropped and the mill at Hood was never built. George Broughton’s "Drano Flume and Lumber Co. became inactive.
George’s son Harold decided to try and make the business work. He leased the nine mile flume from the Drano Flume and Lumber Co. and later bought it out.
He maintained a cookhouse at each mill.
Lumber longer than 32 fee was trucked, but anything else smaller, was sent down the flume. It took 55 minutes for a cant to travel the nine miles, 1,000 foot drop.
This information came from a pamphlet on Harold James Broughton and this blog, which the author says he came across discrepancies while researching the history.
http://broughtonlogflume.blogspot.com/
Harold D. Broughton
I am the grandson of Harold J. Broughton. I was told that the Drano Flume and Lumber Co. Sold their cants to the Oregon Lumber Co. The cants were rafted over from Drano Lake to Hood River. There the Oregon Lumber Co. Had a planer/remanufacturing mill and could process the cants to useable lumber.