BEEF SLOUGH 53 



secured. Usually, though, all went off wonderfully 

 well, and she soon passed the closing boom and out of 

 the Slough into the Mississippi. Soon they tied up 

 under a bar or on the foot of an island, while the boat 

 went back to the Slough and got her second piece. 



When coupled up, these two pieces made a raft two 

 hundred and seventy-five feet wide and six hundred feet 

 long. They contained 800,000 to 1,000,000 feet of logs, 

 weighed 3500 tons, and covered three acres. 



The output from Beef Slough was 12,000,000 feet in 

 1867, 26,000,000 feet in 1869, and 10,000,000 feet in 

 1870. 



From the time the Mississippi River Logging Com- 

 pany took control, in 1871, the annual output increased 

 quite steadily, until it reached 535,000,000 feet in 1885, 

 405,000,000 feet in 1887, and 542, 000,000 feet in 1889. 



In 1889, the operations were transferred from Beef 

 Slough to West Newton Slough, a little below, on the 

 opposite side. They were conducted by a new company, 

 but it was composed of the same stockholders, and 

 headed by the same officers. 



Not only the logs belonging to the "pool," as it was 

 called, but all logs coming down the Chippewa were 

 handled and delivered to their owners in regular raft 

 shape, on the regular charges allowed by the state 

 charter. 



There were over 2,000 different marks on the logs 

 scaled up and passed through the Slough. The way this 

 was done was certainly a fine demonstration of effi- 

 ciency and square business methods. 



West Newton reached the peak of its business in 

 1892, when 632,150,000 feet of logs were rafted out. 



Using West Newton as a base required the driving 

 of the loose logs out of the main mouth of the Chip- 



