The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1926-07-23
FIFTY MILLIONS
TO SCRAP PILE
Investment in Old Fashioned
Lumber Business Written
Off Entirely.

LAUNDERING, getting its start in
1880, was humming and roaring in
dustry in Minnesota from 1890 to
1910, the years of the great harvest.
The number of sawmills doubled to
more than 500, and their size increas-
ed tenfold. The investment ran to
fifty million dollars, great sum for
those days, a great sum for any day
to be put into a vanishing industry.
Some millions were invested in
timber lands but that did not show
half the stumpage value. Much OF 1t
was logged on contract, including
$13,000,000 paid the state of Mime
sofa for timber on state lands, OF
which every cent is sailed away in
permanent funds for the schools and
university and other trusts.
The price paid for land did not
show the stumpage value. Much Of
the land was taken up by the original
entryman at dollar and quarter an
acre. Some of it for scrip that could
be had for as little as fifty cents an
acre. And as the heaviest stand
might run thirty thousand feet to
the acre, it appears that some of the
finest white pine and norway in Min
nesota was acquired for less than five
cents a thousand feet-timber that
would today be worth more than ten
dollars thousand on the stump.
Investment in the lumber business
ran heavily into plant and raw ma
terials. The beginning was small.
The original plant was not much
more than the portable mills one sees
today, a donkey engine and circular
saw. From that up to say ten thou
sand dollars. In 1890, the Duluth
Chamber of Commerce celebrated the
opening of the newest, largest and
most up to date sawmill that imagin-
alton could conceive-a sixty thou
sand dollar investment. The lumber
men came to the point where sixty
thousand dollar plant wouldn't be
much more than a shed.
In the wasteful days Of river driv-
ing-all pioneer industry is wasteful
the investment ran heavily into
logs, even at seven dollars thousand
feet. 1t required two years supply,
for an entire winters cut was often
hung up in the upper waters of a
stream that did not behave as ex-
pected. Always heavy percentage
of logs were stranded on the bends
and bars. After the Rum River Boom
company wound up its affairs, mil
vaged from the banks. and bottoms.
That was one Of the reasons for
Fastening the adoption of the log
ging road-it delivered its logs at the
mill without shrinkage and got them
there the same season. There was
another Investments much as half
million in logging road that was
to pay out in eight years and be
pulled up by the roots in ten.
1t was transient business. The
camps cut over their tracts and were
abandoned. The mills finished their
cut and were dismantled. The rail-
roads hauled out their logs and were
relaid somewhere else. The lumber
jack drifted west. The operators
moved to Florida or Washington fol-
lowing the pine.
In one generation the harvest of
pine in Minnesota was begun and
completed. The new industry that is
coming to take its place is on a diff
ferent basis, and using other prod
ucts from the woods. The new indus
try is a continuous business; the old
lumber industry that is nearly done
was a rushing harvest.