Log drive most romantic chapter

Following log drivers on the river were wanigans which contained the camp office, cooking equipment and supplies. This one was on rapids of the Flambeau River. Drivers were fed four times a day while the drive was going on. However, they carried their own food for the midday meal.

     "It is by far the most romantic part of the lumbering era on the Chippwea River, and no river had the stories of log drives that the Chippewa had," one historian noted of this particular aspect of the lumbering operation.
     Success of the drive - getting the logs from the woods to the sawmills - determined whether or not mill owners would make a profit.
     Some of the worst years for lumber mill owners and employes resulted from a poor drive in the spring.
     The most profitable years followed a "clean" drive, a term meaning all logs possible were gotten out of the woods and into mill boom areas.

Long before railroads

     Driving logs remained a high priority item for years until the advent of the logging railroad which guaranteed that logs cut in the woods would reach the mills.
     There was no such guarantee with the driving operation because too much depended on temperature, amount of winter snow, thaw period, and amount of spring rain. Low water was another hazard. On the other hand, floods often carried logs past the waiting mills or left them high and dry along the streams where within one summer worms would destroy their use as lumber.
      Driving was hard, difficult work and required long days. It was also the most dangerous of all logging operations.
     There were scores of injuries and some fatalities in the cutting operation when men were injured by falling trees or by skidding logs going out of control, or in the mills by breaking of equipment, but the greatest loss of life during the lumbering era was attributed to drownings during the driving period.

Newspaper accounts

     Old newspaper accounts speak of a number of these, pointing out that at Little Falls, two men lost their lives when they attempted to "shoot" the falls rather than carry their boat around them.
     Jim Hawkins, a foreman on an Eau Claire River drive, was thrown into the water when one of the huge rollways came loose and the water suddenly rose as a result.
     Breaking log jams was probably the most treacherous work and in 1905, 16 men lost their lives at Little Falls as result of an attempt to break up a huge jam.

Daredevil characters

A driving crew gathers in bateau boats about 1908 before starting on a drive down the Flambeau and Chippewa rivers. Log drivers usually rode the logs to keep them moving and to prevent jamming up along the shore. Flooding dams were built on the river and tributaries. When the logs reached that point, gates were opened and the rush carried logs to the next dam.

     Jam breakers, or crackers, were described as " a sort of daredevil, skillful fellers, who won't work any place where there ain't danger," wrote a log driver in 1869.
     The key to breaking a jam was to free logs around the edges and let the rest pass to the side.
     However, that often failed, particularly at places like the falls at Chippewa where at various times jams were one and a half miles back up the river.
     In these cases, the jam crackers attempted to work out the key log, but it was dangerous. Often they tried to pull these apart by tying lines to them and supplying power from the shore.
     Folks would often line the shores to watch jam breakers at work. One newspaper account described it: "the drivers, in red flannel shirts, dripping wet, shout and labor; the oxen strain and pull; here a log starts to move amid the cheers of those looking on. Often the logs again pile up within another mile and the procedure has to be repeated."
     A huge log jam in 1876 two miles north of Menomonie once backed up logs for three miles on the Red Cedar.
     Similar tales are recorded of drivers working on the Black and St. Croix rivers.
     In the first few years of log driving workers received $3 a day, which was about $2 above standard pay for mill workers.

Ability soon discovered

     But during the next few years, everyone sought the larger pay and many applied for work on the drive with big stories about their experience.
     When one of these men applied to Andrew Tainter on the Red Cedar and was mum about just where he had driven before, Tainter took him along with the remark "he could either do the work or he couldn't, and it would be known in a hurry."
     Most of the drivers were quick, strong men which enabled them to hop from one log to another on the drive. None of them wanted to walk along the shore when they couldn't ride on the logs.
     The format usually called for an advance crew which went ahead of the drive and looked for possible obstacles and log jam sites, then the main crew followed with one group working each side of the river.

Pick up strays

     While the advance crew kept the logs going smoothly to avoid bottlenecks, the sackers, or rear crew, pushed logs which became stranded back into the main stream.
     Most rode, it was described as sort of like a cowboy, the worst thing for him is to walk.
     Days started early and drivers arose at 3 a.m. to take advantage of the water level.
     Men slept in small tents but most of the time it was on the ground. The big struggle was keeping clothes dry during wet days and cool nights.
     In later years, starting about 1870, lumbermen started building flooding dams along the river. When the rollways were cut on the northern tributaries the logs were floated into the next reservoir. When all the logs were in the flowage, gates were opened and the logs shot down the sluice and floated to the next reservoir. The procedure was repeated until the logs were in holding areas.
     In addition, other men started to build dams on smaller rivers and would charge a toll to lumbermen when they attempted to move their logs through.
     As it developed in other aspects of the lumber industry, politics entered the picture concerning the right to collect fees and construct dams.
     Charters were granted to certain lumbermen to form log driving operations and such groups as the Eau Claire River Driving Company, Beef Slough Booming and Log Driving Co. and Chippewa River Driving and Improvement Co. were formed.

- Arnie Hoffman

Extracted from the Eau Claire Leader Telegram
Special Publication, Our Story 'The Chippewa Valley and Beyond', published 1976
Used with permission.