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High rigger braced on his steel cable topping a Douglas fir to be used as a high lead spar tree for the Clear Lake Lumber Co., Washington, ca. 1912
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| Title | High rigger braced on his steel cable topping a Douglas fir to be used as a high lead spar tree for the Clear Lake Lumber Co., Washington, ca. 1912 |
| Photographer | Cress, John D. |
| Date | ca. 1912 |
| Notes | Caption taken from another source: Topping a High Lead Spar Tree. An exceptionally fine view of this spectacular operation. From a 5-foot Douglas Fir tree the branches have been trimmed to where the diameter is 22 inches - 1t 185 feet - and the 60-foot falling top is shown just as it is about to leave the tree, while the High Rigger is shown braced on his steel cable for the 8-foot sway, with his ax hanging and climbing rope dangling. The top must be cut to avoid danger from breaking limbs. 22 inches is required, and Spar height determined by that, varying from 140 to 220 feet. Clear Lake Lumber Co.
Printed on image is negative number 17800.
PH Coll 900 |
| Contextual Notes | A spar tree is the tree used as the highest anchor point in a high lead cable logging setup. One of the first tasks was to locate a suitable spar-tree. This tree was meant to act as the centerpost for the network of lines that would reach out into the brush to grab the logs and pull them in to be stacked, rather like straws, in a loose pile called the cold-deck. The spar tree had to be trimmed of its branches, "topped" (the top portion of the tree, beyond the highest portion of the rigging, was cut off), and then rigged with a series of supporting guy wires, an assortment of blocks, and working lines. The guy wires kept the spar-tree upright under heavy loads while the blocks carried the lines that would drag and lift the logs as well as haul the lines back to the worksite.
The Clear Lake Lumber Company was created in 1903 when Bratnober-Waite Lumber Company changed its name. This original Clear Lake Lumber Company merged with Skagit Logging Company and Mt. Baker Timber Company in 1913, forming a new Clear Lake Lumber Company. The company reached its peak in 1925, when 1,236 men were employed by the firm. However, the company was in receivership by the end of the year and, after a protracted court battle, the assets were sold at auction in 1927. The properties inventoried at 5 million dollars and was the largest sale of its kind ever held in northwest Washington.
Clear Lake was formerly an important sawmill town on the west side of Clear lake two miles south of Sedro-Woolley. The town faded when the Clear Lake Lumber Company mill burned in May of 1918. |
| Subjects (LCSH) | Loggers--Washington (State); Logging--Washington (State); Douglas fir--Washington (State) |
| Location Depicted | United States--Washington (State) |
| Digital Collection | Panoramic Photographs
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| Order Number | PPC033 |
| Ordering Information | Restrictions apply to the ordering of this image. Please contact photos@u.washington.edu for more information. |
| Repository | University of Washington Libraries. Special Collections Division |
| Repository Collection | Panorama Photographs Collection. PH Coll 900 |
| Object Type | Panoramic photograph |
| Physical Description | Silver gelatin, b&w; 9 3/4 x 30 3/4 in. |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from a photograph at 400 dpi in TIFF format using a Graphtec CSX300-09, resized and enhanced using Adobe Photoshop, and imported as JPEG2000 using Contentdm's software JPEG2000 Extension. 2010. |
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