Historic Hood River
Lumbering, Circa 1901
10-27-2011
Notes
This is a great image, though the notes are a bit hard to interpret. The note on the front suggests an unlikely length for the felled tree. Perhaps the number refers to board feet? Hopefully someone with lumber industry knowledge can fill us in.
The reverse identifies three of the men as A.J. Shepler, Ike West, and Jim West. It further states, “Taken 1901. Weight 215 after typhoid fever and pneumonia.” My best guess is this refers to A.J. Shepler and he is the skinny guy to the left, but that’s only conjecture.
Charlott
I certainly don’t know much of anything about logging, but my guess is that the 3682 would be the number of board feet they got out of that log, even though that sounds somewhat far fetched to me, close to a mile of lumber out of that log. Now way is that log that long as is.
I do not know about the West’s of that time. However, there was a West family in my teen age years that were into logging. In fact there was one of the boys named Jim, who was killed up there somewhere in a logging accident. I know about this because my husband was a good friend of his brother, Dick. I don’t know if this might have been of the same family of West’s or not.
spinsur
if ya zoom in, one can see the "length 16". a quick calc on twenty feet (guess before I zoomed) x five feet in diameter (guess?) is just under 4000 board feet, so I’m quite sure that’s what the 3682 feet refers to. Alfred and TJ Shepler platted property in Hood River southwest of May and Twelfth in 1902.