HARDWOOD RECORD 



Wonderful YelloW Poplar Vroposition 



One of the most interestiug ilevelopmeiits in 

 current lumber history is the present season 's 

 operations of the Yellow Poplar Lumber Com- 

 pany of Coal Grove, Ohio, in yellow pop- 

 lar timber. These operations are especially 

 interesting from the fact that yellow poplar 

 lumber in all the better grades is at present 

 in heavy demand with a scarcity of stock. 



The timber holdings of the Yellow Poplar 

 Lumber Company are largely located in Dick- 

 inson county, Va., a county without a railroad 

 and with no transportation by water save 

 through the break of the Cumberland Moun- 

 tains known as the breaks of the Big 

 Sandy. This gorge of the river is embanked 

 by cliffs rising to an altitude in places of 

 1,500 feet. The rough mountain torrent 

 through the gorge is strewn with stupendous 

 masses of rock, often fifty feet in height. 

 Only in exceptional seasons of heavy rain 

 was it possible to run this portion of the river 

 with logs, and then only with great danger 

 of los.5 through fire, sap rot and delay. Above 

 this gorge the Yellow Poplar Lumber Com- 

 pany owns a timber area carrying about 150,- 

 000,000 feet of the type of poplar that has 

 made the Big Sandy river famous dur- 

 ing all lumber history. To get this timber 

 out and to the company's mills at Coal Grove 

 has been the engineering j)roblem which has 

 confronted this corporation. 



The Yellow Poplar Lumber Company has 

 compassed this difficult feat of woods en- 

 gineering. It has been accomplished by build- 

 ing an immense splash dam in the main Rus- 

 sell Pork of the Big Sandy just above the 

 five mile breaks of the river. This is the 

 largest splash dam that has ever been erected. 

 The extreme length is 360 feet and it contains 

 five "flues" or flumes each 40 feet wide, 

 which are temporarily filled with an ingenious 

 arrangement of timliers. spars and planking. 



held in place by wooden triggers. These 

 triggers consist of pieces of timber 10 inches 

 in diameter and 6 feet long that are fitted 

 between 18-ineh steel girders projecting from 

 the concrete piers above the top of the abut- 

 ments and 36-inch timbers that extend from 

 pier to pier, and which support the ends of 

 the spars carrying the splash board planking. 

 The dam is anchored in solid rock at both 

 ends and at the base. Holes are bored in 

 these triggers, and sticks of dynamite placed 

 therein, which are exploded simultaneously 

 when a full head of water is secured, thus re- 

 leasing the false work, turning loose the vast 

 body of water and splashing out the logs 

 above the dam and driving them through the 

 brakes of the lower river. This dam backs 

 water up to a depth of twenty-five feet over 

 a large area and affords ten to sixteen feet 

 of water through the five miles of the breaks 

 of the Big Sandy. It carries the logs down 

 to the lower reaches of the river which are 

 free from rocks and other obstructions, at 

 which point they are put into rafts for float- 

 ing down the Big Sandy to Catlettsburg; 

 thence they are transferred across the Ohio 

 river to the company 's mills at Coal Grove. 



An accompanying picture, made by the 

 editor of Hardwood Record on November 17 

 last, shows the concrete splash dam nearly 

 complete. The piers of this dam are 32 feet 

 long at the base, sloping to the top, and are 

 10x20 feet in size. The end piers are nearly 

 100 feet long. The upper ends of the piers 

 have a five-foot V-shaped nose of extension 

 to ward off the logs and lessen the impact of 

 the water. The dam is mounted on a sub-dam 

 five feet above the river bottom, and there Is 

 let into the solid rock foundation of the river 

 bed. After the excavation was blasted the 

 entire surface under the piers was drilled and 

 sections of 60-pound steel rail set on end to 



form anchors for the piers. It has taken 

 forty carloads of cement to build the struc- 

 ture. The cement was shipped by rail to 

 Elkhorn City, Ky., and then transferred by 

 wagon over two mountain ridges. It has re- 

 quired seven months to transfer this cement, 

 and forty mules have been constantly em- 

 ployed in the work. The cost of this dam is 

 said to have been about $40,000. Its dimen- 

 sions are 25 feet high above the sub-dam, 360 

 feet across the top, and about 340 feet at the 

 base. 



On November 17, at the time the picture 

 was taken, there was dumped in the gorge 

 above the dam nearly 30,000,000 feet of pop- 

 lar logs, averaging 750 feet apiece. This 

 dump is more than two-thirds of a mile in 

 length, and the logs, by aid of a Lidgerwood 

 hoisting engine and trolley line, were care- 

 fully packed crosswise the stream as closely 

 as matches in a box. The dump contains 

 36,000 large virgin forest yellow poplar sticks 

 of timber, ranging in length from 12 to 38 

 feet, with an average of 750 feet to the piece, 

 amounting to 81,000 logs of sawmill length. 



This is the largest assemblage of poplar 

 logs ever made at one point in lumber history, 

 and is a part of the 40,000,000 feet which 

 constitutes the log crop of the Yellow Poplar 

 Lumber Company for 1910 manufacture. 



On December 4 the dam was turned loose 

 with a splash on which 6,000 logs were put 

 through. At this time the dam did not have 

 a full head of water, only about 21 feet. The 

 first splash was successful in every r&spect. 

 The second splash of the dam, with a compara- 

 tively light head of water, was made on De- 

 cember 13, when a second batch of 6,000 logs 

 was put through. A considerable quantity 

 of them got through the breaks successfully 

 and passed Elkhorn City, Ky., where they are 

 being rafted. 



Vi:i.[.(l\V POPL.\R LUMBER COMPANY'S BIG CONCItETE SPLASH DAM, UNDER CONSTRI.'CTH IN. RUSSELL FORK, 



BIG SANDY RIVER, ABOVE BREAKS. 



