Rogue River courier. (Grants Pass, Or.) 1886-1927, 1906-02-09


bered locality in the United States.
The rancher has the timber that he
must make some disposition of-he
must remove it in order to clear his
ranch. The rancher has his teams
with which to haul, which from his
standpoint costs him practically moth
ing, while the mill man is obliged to
hire and pay big wages for his work.
The rancher and his sons can do their
work without an overseer while the
mill man must have his work we'll
managed by superintendents. The
rancher already has roads, while the
mill man must build all his own
roads, and for the special purpose of
reaching the timber. The rancher
and his help while getting out timber
are at home and on very little ex.
pense, while the mill man must 90
to the expense of building camp and
properly equipping it. When the
rancher has put his million feet of
timber on the cars, the logs are rolled
to mari ct without further delay while
the mill man, with his mill in the
country, still has the most serious
end of the problem to solve-that of
hauling the lumber to market, en-
ploylng four and six teams, or road
engines; such work bringing no end
of trouble in the breaking down of
wagons, sick horses. wet weather
and bad roads, breaking down of
bridges, and many other familiar
things to the lumber hauler.
We all know how numbering has
been carried on since the beginning
of the industry in Josephine County.
1t has always been the same expen.
sive proposition. Why not now make
a change? Why not encourage our
mill men to move their mills to
Grants Pass? A generous land holder
is now offering very desirable mill
sites in Grants Pass free.
There is no doubt but that satisfact-
ory arrangements could be made with
the company which proposes to build
a railway from Grants Pass to Cres-
cent City to use the same bridge and
a portion of the track as a logging
railroad That portion of it could be
used for such use and from that point
run a logging road up Applegate river.
And in the building of such log
Ying railroad no great expense need be
gone to, if the same methods are fol-
lowed here by the Grants Pass q
Western Railway as are followed in
other sections where railroads are
built for immediate use and for SINH
lar purposes Blast out the stumps,
put down the ties and lay the steel /;
then put on the logging train and set
the business going. Use the profits
to build the road Logging cars are
built gillguys to allow them to run
over irregular track. Locomotives are
constructed for operation on the same
kind of road. But few boxcars would
be needed the first year. Special ore
cars can be procured for the hauling
Of ore over rough track. The passen-
ger express and mail traffic of each
train would more than pay running
expenses of such trains. At the same
time each train could bring in 100, 600
feet of logs, and By making two trips
a day would land 200, 900 feet of logs
to our mills in Giants Pass daily. At
$2 thousand freight it would make
a net profit for the road of $400 day
(besides the transportation of ores)
and $l2,00 month, or sl44, 600 an
nuslly. This profit alone would build
and equip two miles Of road each
month, or "a miles year, and by 30
managing. in two years the citizens
OF Grants Pass can own fully
equipped road through the Applegate
Valley. to the Blue Ledge mine and
have it free from all debt, and no
danger Of any company transferring
the stock in any way that would re-
tard the development Of Grants Pass.
What would such proposition
mean for Grants Pass? Can we afford
to sleep on our oars at this time?
II we had eight small mills operat-
ing in Grants Pass, cutting 25, 600
feet Of lumber each, daily. instead OF
the 1c or l3 that are now scattered
through the woods, these mills,
through the agency Of such railroad
as is proposed. would soon enlarge
their capacity to 100000 feet each
daily. They could do this because
they would be able to procure their
logs at much less cost than they must
pay now by present methods And
what would that mean for Grants
Pass?
Logs can be bought of ranchers, de-
livered on board logging trains, for at
least % per thousand feet. While
the Applegate Boom & Lumber Co.
| mara oparat;pg tbay hou,,bt o lar0a