Visit to the Last Steam Saw Mill in the USA

Mike has really wanted to visit the Hull-Oaks Lumber Mill in Monroe, Oregon.  Today we visited the mill.  Sadly they quit running it by steam about two years ago but everything else is original.  The have a great philosophy.  All of the men who work there have very specific jobs and they are hard to replace.  Therefore, even when times are down and the mill is not making money they keep running so that the men still have jobs and they will be there when things get up again.  

Where most mills now are totally automated men run the equipment here.  They cut only what is ordered and the sawyer has all of the orders up on a bulletin board and cuts the log and boards to meet orders that are placed.  Not one part of the log is waste. Mike was in his world but all six of us were really fascinated.  The tour guide told us that he is sure that there won't be tours after next year because of all of the safety regulations the government requires.  We are glad that we made

 

H ull-Oakes: The Last Steam Powered Lumber Mill in America

In 1934, in the depth of the Depression, Ralph Hull started sawmilling by leasing a mill from a friend who had closed the operation due to harsh economic times. In 1936, Ralph’s uncle, Wes Miller, saw his Dawson sawmill burn to the ground. The only buildings undamaged in the fire were the boiler room and planer. Wes decided not to rebuild the sawmill and sold the site to Ralph.

Ralph and one of his employees then drew up plans to build a new sawmill, now on the registry of National Historic Sites. In addition to designing and building the mill, Ralph began purchasing timberland to ensure a log supply for his operation. The sawmill is registered with the Historic American Engineering Record and the U.S Park Service in Washington D.C. Ralph Hull’s biography, photographs, and drawings of the sawmill are recorded in the Library of Congress.

Throughout the years, Hull-Oakes has provided Douglas-fir timbers for many significant projects worldwide. These include beams for the U.S.S. Constitution; 100-foot stringers for ferry slips in New Jersey; and timber for mine construction in Peru, bridge building in Newfoundland, the world’s longest love seat in Tennessee, and water piping systems for a hydropower plant in Quebec.

Today, Hull-Oakes Lumber Company continues to run under the management of Ralph’s grandson, Todd Nystrom. Hull-Oakes is one of the last steam-operated sawmills in the United States. Visitors come from all over the world to experience the unique sights and sounds of the past. In 2009, over 1,500 people from 42 states and 15 countries toured the mill.

110-foot timber for world's longest love seat

We started our afternoon by joining our friends, the Blakes from Corvallis, and the missionaries from Camp Alpine for lunch and then one of the pair of missionaries, the Tuckers joined the Blakes and us to tour the sawmill.  

I'll try to take you through it with just some of the pictures that I took.  

 I took this picture from their web site but it is basically what we saw as we drove up the road.

 Their sign was unique in that is was pictures and letters cut out of saw blades. 

Our tour started at the pond where this guy drove around guiding logs toward the pulley that pulled them up to start the cutting process.  At one point he jumped out of the boat and hopped across the logs to get them arranged. Considering that it rains as much as it is sunny during the months that we have been here he must have some very cold and wet days.  

Next the log is pulled out of the water by a pulley and is pulled through the barker.  All of the bark is removed and sold to landscape companies.  The cutter told me that he has had trees up to 10' across.

 These are some of the logs that have been barked but I especially wanted a picture of the pulley that the logs go onto when they come up from the pond. 

We were taken into a room where the blades are sharpened.  This fits one saw and the big band saw blade was probably 30 feet long and 16" wide.  The change them out every two hours.  There is never a down time for maintenance and they have two millwrights (what Grandpa Ellington was) who continually fix things as they happen.  

It was amazing to watch the big slices come off of the log and the guy caught and fed every one. 

This was the mammoth chainsaw that cut the exact lengths. It was quite amazing to see it drop down through the huge log and just slice it off. This one was a "wimp".

We watched things sawed into board pieces, planed, sorted and processed.  It was all so interesting.

This was an order boing over to the scales to be weighed.

This is Cherrie Blake standing by one of the boards.  You can see that they really put out some big stuff here.  Next is the group w/ guide minus Cherry who took this shot.

This picture of a log truck getting ready to unload was actually taken from their website.  We see monsters like this coming up and down the road to Veneta almost every day.   This mill handles only Douglas Fir.  They have lots of their own timber but they buy from two local Indian tribes, the state of Washington and the state of Oregon and try to save their crop and let it grow.

I love seeing pretty little country churches while we are out driving.  I made Mike stop and let me get a picture of this one.

 It was a treat as we arrived home to see that the flowers just outside our front windows had bloomed.  It was a pretty end to a fun day.