The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1913-07-24
VALLEY SHOWS
RAPID GROWTH
FRUITS GROW TO PERFECTION
Commercial Quantities in all Varieties
Shipped Lumber Industry PrOmin-
ent in Community Mills Unique

Every so often it is good for the
people who live in a community to
take a kind of an inventory of them
selves, their assets, opportunities and
their development. This week, red
letter one marked by the second sue
cessful midsummer celebration at
Woodwork park, is an opportune mo-
ment for Hood River people to consider
what they have. Considering the point
from which they started and the point
they have reached, it can truthtully be
said that no other rural section of the
United States in dozen years time
has made such notable progress. When
it is known that just l3 years ago. the
Hood River valley began to ship out its
first carload of apples, when il is
/ known that the big orchards of the
present day for the most part we're
covered with forest trees, when it is
kuown that the families inhabiting the
district could be counted in mere terms
of scores, then the man who has come
to the region in recent years to aid in
the development can grasp the extent
and scope of the progress that has heen
hasty and yet solid. The pioneers, who
felled the first trees and planted the
| first orchards know these facts. The
development of the district, the hard
ships and tolls of the early days, and.
! best of all the rewards in after years,
have been part of their lives.
Today Hood River computes its apple
harvest in the hundreds of thousands
of boxes. pioneer in the industry in
the beginning, it is now a leader.
| nNkar loo Aa, In. kas
parts of the district, but the words of
Hood River growers are potent.
Today the Apple Valley grows
other fruits in carload lots, as we'll.
The pears grown here go out to the
markets of the world. Hood River
cherries have been found second to
none and have been handled in large
quantities during the past year.
So predominant has grown the Hood
River apple that any other industry in
| the valley is to a certain extent over
shadowed. Although local people do
not stop to think about it. the Hood
River valley is one of the Northwest's
greatest lumber producing sections. In
| the Oregon Lumber Company's plant
at Dee, recently destroyed by fire. and
that of the Stanley-Smith Lumber Co.,
at Green Point, the community has had
two of the most unique and largest ca
pacity mills in the country. No mills
are more talked of in lumber journals,
and visitors from lumber producing
sections in all parts of the country
journey here to see the plants. The
Oregon Lumber Co. mill was the first
large plant ever to have been driven
by electric power. The Stanley-Smith
Co. has created comment by the log
ging system put into execution in the
Green Point hills. The large logs are
transported there by means of cable
lines and huge donkey engines. as large
as can be procured by the manufac-
turers.
The managers of both companies,
Chas. T. Early, of the Oregon Lumber
Co., and j. f. Robertson, of the Stan
ley Smith Co.. have risen to their posi-
tions because of their practical knowl-
edge of the industry and their execu-
tive ability. The two large plants em-
ploy, when running at capacity, APP
proximately 500 men, an enviable pay
roll anywhere. The Dee mill, the de-
bris of the burned plant of which is al
ready being cleared away for the new
structure that will rise there, had a
daily capacity of more than l5O. 900
feet. The Stanley-Smith Company cuts
l40, 600 feet per each 10 hours.
The latter company has as its log
ging foreman, Alex S. Reid, said by
lumbermen in every part of the north
west to be one of the most experienced
men in cruising, handling logging ap-
narattto and in handling the men under
MIN of any in the great industry.