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Cedar Poles

   Three related issues have faced the timber industry, affecting Sandpoint and the surrounding area: a declining supply of logs, increasing government regulations, and changing technology and markets.  

   
Transporting cedar poles. Duane Davis photograph, courtesy of Verna Davis. 

    Sandpoint has been a center for the cedar pole industry since the early 1900s.  Trucks hauled cedars from throughout the Pend Oreille region to Sandpoint for processing.   Merle Morrow, who worked for Schaffer-Hitchcock Pole Co., recalled that "in 1950, we took out pretty near 6,000 poles at Camp Nine, at the head of [Priest Lake]."

    Pole cutters took only selected trees in the woods, basing their decisions on size and soundness.  Merle Morrow remembered "One of them cedar makers would go up and thump on a tree [to test for soundness].  He'd just peck it with his axe and he'd tell you whether you could cut two feet off'n it or three, four feet off'n it.   There was a genius when it come to that."