The Willamette Tributaries & Timber

This photograph taken in 1902 shows an inland cut near the Bohemia Ranger District.
Once railroads were laid, waterways became a less prominent though still important mode of transportion in the timber industry.
Courtesy U.S. Forest Service

Early timbermen used Willamette River tributaries such as Silk Creek, Culp Creek, and the Coast Fork of the Willamette to power mills and move lumber. Wooden flumes, like the Woodard flume that was removed to make way for Dorena Dam in the 1940s, drew water from the area's rivers to float lumber to the mills. Most had a catwalk beside them that allowed men to walk alongside the floating lumber and prevent jams. Loggers also used splash dams to store logs and float them downriver to a mill. Millponds stored timber awaiting the mill.

The logs float and you have to sort them. They are in there all which way like chopsticks or something so you have to line them up to store them. You rotate the logs. You have to keep putting the new ones in and bringing the old ones out. In the summertime, it is necessary to turn them over because they get dry and start to check. We had a pond boat. I worked out there and fell in a couple times. It was pretty cold in the winter but I was learning how the rest of the guys suffered.
--Carlton Woodard recalling the millpond at his father's mill. 1999 interview.

New technologies lessened Cottage Grove's dependence on its waterways. Railroads replaced river drives and made it easier to log inland from riverbanks. Sprinklers have replaced millponds.