the large mills have located on the edge of the forest 

 zone or in some cases many miles from the nearest 

 timber. Such locations have sometimes been nec- 

 essary to obtain main-tine rail facilities but some- 

 times are the result of more obscure reasons. For- 

 tunately logging railroads can be constructed 

 cheaply owing to the easy grades and rare need for 

 bridges. Little excavation and rock work is neces- 

 sary in railroad construction. 



Logs are usually moved from the woods to the 

 mill either by railroad or truck. Water transporta- 

 tion is used in only a few isolated instances. 

 Flumes are unknown and I02' chutes are seldom 



Lumber Manufacture 



Sawmills 



The region had 230 sawmills in 1937, of which 

 203 were active at least part of that year and 27 

 were completely idle but not dismantled or aban- 

 doned. The largest city in eastern Oregon, Kla- 

 math Falls, is dependent for its economic existence 

 mainly upon sawmill pay rolls. Other good-sized 

 communities, such as Bend, Oreg., are vitally de- 

 pendent upon the lumber industry. Spokane, a 

 short distance outside the region, is an important 



Figure 28. — Loading ponderosa pine logs on flat cars with gas "jammer." Tractors with arches are used to bring logs to the landing. 



used any more. In the 1931—40 decade, both large 

 and small operators steadily increased their use 

 of trucks for hauling logs (fig. 29), owing to the 

 construction of many miles of new highways. Dirt 

 roads can be constructed relatively inexpensively 

 and there is only a short period in the year when 

 rain or snow makes them impassable. While the 

 advent of truck transportation has meant much to 

 small operations and independent loggers, there is 

 little likelihood that motor trucks will completely 

 displace railroad transportation on large opera- 

 tions, owing to the fact that beyond a certain 

 maximum distance the use of trucks appears to be 

 unprofitable. 



lumber-manufacturing center, but only small quan- 

 tities of logs from this region reach the Spokane 

 sawmills. 



Sawmills range in size from small portable mills 

 (fig. 30) operated by a few men and having an 

 installed daily capacity of some 20 M board feet 

 to large plants employing hundreds of people and 

 turning out as much as 500 M feet (table 28). 

 Roughly one mill in every nine was idle during 

 1937; but it is significant that more than three- 

 quarters of the idle mills were of the smallest size 

 class. No mill with a daily installed capacity 

 greater than 100 M feet was idle; the aggregate 

 capacity of the idle mills was but 6 percent of the 



62 



