THE PERIOD FROM 1878 TO 1891 81 



the Senate in 1904 that "in Colorado and Wyoming, eight acres of 

 land out of ten to which title has been given in the last twenty years 

 have been obtained fraudulently and not for agricultural purposes 

 at all."'' 



While there were a great many timbermen who used the various 

 public land laws to gain title to lands, there were always other timber 

 operators who, with no pretense at land settlement or purchase, 

 erected mills on the public lands and sawed the timber. These men did 

 not confine their efforts to any particular section of the country, but 

 were ge. e^ ally most active where timber stealing was most profitable. 

 In the early eighties, Wisconsin and Michigan were still the field of 

 extensive operations, the public lands in these states furnishing much 

 of the building material for the growing prairie states of the Central 

 West. Somewhat later, the neighborhood of the Rainy River, along 

 the Canadian boundary line, was the scene of much activity. Men 

 from Canada built great roads into the forests on the American side, 

 and took the timber out on the river where steamers were engaged 

 in carrying it away. In 1890, the government sent an expedition to 

 this district, fitted for a winter campaign against the trespassers. °* 



Representative Wells of Wisconsin once gave a very interesting, 

 though perhaps exaggerated, account of the early conditions in the 

 Lake states, describing how "men in the early days of Wisconsin and 

 Michigan, so long as the timber lasted, would purchase 40 acres and 

 'capture' — they did not call it 'stealing' — timber on 320 or 640 

 acres." "It is a known fact," he said, "that in Wisconsin and Michi- 

 gan the lumbermen, the pine-land thieves, have grown rich and pur- 

 chased seats in this house — ^yea, and wandered over into the other, 

 and dangerously near some of them have wandered to the Interior 

 Department, and some of them, it is said, wandered even in there."'^ 



Some of the western states presented newer fields. In Washington, 

 in and around Puget Sound, famous for its magnificent forests, 

 timbermen, mostly residents of San Francisco, erected large saw- 

 mills upon the public lands, and for years engaged in the manufacture 



•>^ Report, National Conservation Commission, III, 391 : "Lumber Industry," I, 

 259-263: Donaldson, "Public Domain," 540, 683, 1220: Conservation, Nov., 1908, 

 579-584: Con(f. Rec, Mar. 31, 1904, 4032: S. Doc. 189; 58 Cong. 3 sess., 106. 



'-i Report, I>and Office, 1881, 370-377: Report, Sec. of Int., 1890, XVI. 



65 Cong. Rec, Dec. 7, 1894, 111. 



