Historic Hood River
Two For One
Notes
I’ve looked at this image many times but never closely enough to realize we’re looking at two different mills: The one at Green Point (Kingsley) and the one at Dee. We’ve talked plenty about Dee, but this image shows a view of the Stanley Smith Mill at Green Point (on the left) we haven’t seen before.
We’ve seen the view from the mill pond several times, such as in this image. Logs are coming down from logging camps up towards Rainy, Black and North Lakes, plopping into the mill pond for processing into cants. This image shows the other side of the mill, where the cants are loaded onto the lumber flume for the trip down to the planer mills at Belmont and Ruthton.
Both of the views in this composite image show some defiance of gravity. We’re seeing logs being hauled up the chute from the pond into the Dee Mill, and we’re seeing the start of the trip for cants climbing up from the Green Point Mill to start the long trip down to the planer mills where they will be processed into finished lumber. I wish we had some more detail to see the mechanism for lifting the wood.
Tags: Dee, Green Point, logging, lumber, mill, Oregon Lumber Company, Stanley Smith
Roger Sheldrake
This picture showing the first sawmill to adopt electric power leads to my next comment. Hull Oaks Lumber Co. west of Monroe Oregon finally converted all daily operations from steam to electric power in 2013. The steam plant is still there. They still give tours and its quite an operation to see!!
ArthurB
I've seen some details of the Dee mill showing a conveyor belt with “spikes” spaced every 40 feet or so which would grab individual logs (with the help of someone at the pond) sort of like a ski lift, and carry them up into the mill for processing.
L.E.
I suspect it would be like a hay conveyor that was used to take bales up into the barn.
Jeffrey W Bryant
After the Stanley-Smith Lumber Co. went into receivership, the old buildings were purchased in 1921 by George L. Baker and O. L. Craton. Part of the salvaged lumber was used by Mr. Baker in the construction of chicken houses.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn97071110/1921-08-04/ed-1/seq-9/