CHAPTER XVII 



OUR FOREST FOLLOWED 



THE PASSENGER PIGEONS 



Rise, Activity and Decline of a Hemlock Lumber 

 Town in Pennsylvania — Cross Forks 



From Munsey's Magazine (Abridged.) 



THE beginning of the harvest of hemlock bark and 

 timber, in the Potter county forest, was about 

 1872, reaching full volume in 1892, and declining, to 

 finish in 1912, except some isolated parcels of timber 

 land that remained when the big sawmills and the 

 lumberjacks left or turned to other occupations. 

 Many of our townships, in turn, turned giddy with 

 prosperity for a few years and then fell upon dull 

 times, for a time, until the readjustment to new con- 

 ditions made the people ready for a more stable pros- 

 perity in lines of permanent industry, and the real 

 town, beneath the giddy vision, had a new birth. 



The Fountain of Prosperity 



The fountain from which all this prosperity flowed 

 was, of course, the big sawmill of the Lackawanna 

 Lumber Company. This, as has been said, started 

 operations in 1895. It was burned down the next year, 

 and in 1897 was replaced by a bigger, busier and bet- 

 ter mill. This in turn was destroyed by Are in the 



no 



