Soon monumental flumes began appearing throughout the Sierra Nevada, the Bitter-root Mountains, the Cascades, and the Rockies, with lengths ranging from 2 to 60 miles.Ĭonstruction of the Kings River flume began in late July 1889. It worked better than the square-sided type because when two logs became jammed, the dam they created would make the water rise, lifting the logs into the flume’s wider part and freeing them. Haines experimented in 1868 with a V-shaped flume. Partly inspired by the use of sluices in the Western mining industry, a Nevada lumberman named James W. A jam like this could tear a flume apart in minutes. Water would soon begin to flow over the flume’s sides. If a log got caught against the flume’s walls, the whole operation would quickly become clogged, with subsequent logs piling up against the first to form a dam. Short, square-sided flumes and chutes had been used early in the century in the eastern United States, but they were no good over long distances. Nor could horses and donkeys carry enough lumber to support large-scale operations. In the virgin forests of the wild Western mountains, few navigable rivers were available, and railroads were too costly to build. Spanning the canyon’s gorges and cliffs, it would begin 4,500 feet above sea level and drop almost 4,200 feet as it weaved its way down to Sanger, 54 miles downstream.Īlthough natural rivers had been used to transport lumber for centuries, the artificial river, or flume, was almost entirely an American invention. Instead he proposed building the world’s longest flume. At first he planned to build a railroad down Kings River Canyon from the mill to the railhead, but he abandoned the idea when he saw how steep and treacherous the chasm was. Smith decided there had to be a better way. By 1888 Smith and Moore had spent more than $100,000 amassing more than 30,000 acres on the south side of the Kings River Canyon gorge. Stagecoach loads of men were hauled into the mountains to walk their claims and then immediately sell them for prices ranging from $100 to $600 (on top of the $2.50 per acre), with ample quantities of liquor thrown in. And it grows straight upward with little taper, making the lumber yield from each tree very high. With few branches, the tree rarely forms knots or imperfections. Redwood makes excellent lumber, being resistant to fire, insects, and rot. Smith and Moore, aware of the vast stands of pine, cedar, and redwood that blanketed the western slopes of the high Sierra, began accumulating timberland. He owned mines and ranches and lived in a sumptuous mansion in San Francisco.Īccording to the Timber and Stone Act of 1878, anyone could claim up to 160 acres of timberland in Washington, Oregon, California, or Nevada if he paid $2.50 per acre and swore that he had personally inspected the land. While Smith was a true lumberman, managing and building each new operation, Moore, the majority owner, was a venture capitalist. Moore, prominent San Franciscans who ran sawmills in California and Washington, began buying up property there in the 1880s. The high Sierra Nevada was a wilderness when Hiram C. It also supplied the money and water that turned California’s San Joaquin Valley into a very successful farming area. Built in only 13 months, it was in use from 1890 to 1923 and eventually grew to be the longest in the world, contending with bankruptcy, fire, and death while it permitted the harvest of the world’s largest trees. Most majestic of all the flumes was the Kings River flume in Fresno County, California. Before today’s heavy-duty trucks and roads, loggers could move this lumber out of the remote backcountry only by constructing gigantic aqueducts designed to float it miles down the sides of mountains. Lumbermen built flumes of epic proportions, using water and gravity to bring some of the nation’s best wood to market. This silly but exhilarating amusement ride once served a greater purpose than mere entertainment. Climbing into long, narrow boats molded and colored to resemble hollowed-out logs, Americans by the thousand ride these liquid roller coasters every summer, letting the splashing water soak them as they fly downward. “RIDE THE LOG FLUME!” CRIES THE AMUSEMENT- park advertisement.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |