CHAPTER XIV 
POWER SKIDDING! 
The first patent on power skidding machinery in the United 
States was granted on November 13, 1883, to Horace Butters of 
Ludington, Michigan, and covered an overhead cableway de- 
signed to get logs out of "pot holes" and swampy places in the 
white pine forests. The power for operating the machine was 
supplied by a 8|- by 10-inch 3-drum pile driver, and the cables 
were of manila rope. Perceiving the feasibility of using a 
machine of this type in the cypress forests of North Carolina, the 
inventor built a machine which had the spar and other equip- 
ment mounted on a scow which was floated in the bayous and 
sloughs. It did not completely solve the loggers' problems since 
it was limited to a range of from 700 to 800 feet and conse- 
quently could not reach much of the timber. 
In 1889, William Baptist put a ground system in operation 
in a Louisiana swamp. It consisted of two large drums and an 
engine and boiler mounted on a scow, from which an endless 
cable passed out into the forest for a distance of ^ mile. This 
was later developed into the modern "slack-rope" system now 
used on pullboats. 
A third method called the "snaking system" was a later de- 
velopment in the pine forests of the South. 
CABLEWAY OR OVERHEAD SKIDDING EQUIPMENT 
Overhead logging systems have been used in the eastern part 
of the United States for many years and are now extensively used 
in the Northwest, both for yarding and as a transportation system 
for bringing logs from the yarding engine to the railroad. In the 
latter capacity it functions as an aerial tram. The railroad 
mileage can be reduced by using this method of intermediate 
1 See Logging in the Douglas Fir Region, by W. H. Gibbons, U. S. Dept. 
of Agriculture, Bui. No. 711, Washington, 1918. 
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