292 A RAFT PILOT'S LOG 



until Mr. Edward Douglas, the superintendent, left for 

 the west in 1904, when he took charge of the job until 

 the final wind up. 



Mr. Thompson writes under date of January 13, 

 1929, that no logs were put past Chippewa falls after 

 1904; that in autumn of that year (1904) they splashed 

 and drove everything in the river and had teams haul in 

 from the bottoms and clear the islands and sloughs. 



In this way they had thirty million feet to raft out in 

 1905 and the last full raft was taken by one of Weyer- 

 haeuser and Denkmann's boats late in July or August 

 first. 



Some logs had broken away or got loose from num- 

 ber one and with a small crew he caught most of them 

 in Fisher Slough and fitted them up so they could be 

 taken to Winona. 



Then they pulled the piling and rafted it and some 

 of the booms. These and the picked up logs were taken 

 to Laird and Norton's mill at Winona by the steamer 

 "Frontenac" in August. The chains, wire, and wood 

 were also sold in Winona. The buildings and their con- 

 tents were sold to people living near, in 1905. 



The steamer "E. Douglas" and the pile drivers were 

 sold in 1906, and there was nothing left to indicate the 

 activities of the company that had turned out as high 

 as six hundred million feet of logs in one season, sorted, 

 scaled and rafted up in good shape ready for boats to 

 hitch into and take down river. 1904 was the last full 

 season at West Newton. 1905 - 30,000,000 feet was the 

 output at West Newton, and the clean-up of logs, piles 

 and booms. 



