The Lewis River Hydroelectric Projects - PacifiCorp

Lewis River Interpretive & Education Plan
pulleys. From this central point, a network of aerial cables extended out into the
surrounding forest. A steam-driven skidder was then used to winch logs back to
the spar tree area via the cables, with the logs bouncing and swinging—partially
or completely suspended from the cables—through the trees.
Combined with railroads, high lead logging made all but the most remote
timberlands accessible to timber harvest. In the 1920s and 1930s, there were
many logging operations—both large scale operations and small “gyppo”
operations—working the slopes along the Lewis. Two railroad systems were in
place: one connecting with the North Fork tie mill on Rock Creek (from which
cants were railroaded down to the mouth of Speelyai Creek and sent downriver),
and another connecting to a mill at Dubois.
Several sawmills were established to process the timber. There were mills at
Cougar Creek, Rock Creek, Cresap Bay, and near present-day Yale Park. Much
of the mill production was railroad ties, but the mills also produced shake bolts,
and building and fencing lumber for local use and export. The river continued
to be the primary means of export for lumber and logs until the building of the
Ariel Dam (and the development of modern logging trucks) in the late 1920s
and 1930s.
The CCC and the
US Forest Service
Logging continued to be an important industry in the valley until at least the
1960s. Today, logging occurs less frequently along the Lewis River Valley. Some
logging occurs on PacifiCorp lands as part of wildlife management efforts.
Approximate distribution of the watershed forested land is as follows: 26%
is private industrial forestland, 11% is owned by the Department of Natural
Resources, and 40% is USDA Forest Service.
In the wake of the Yacolt burn and subsequent intense logging in the Lewis River
Valley, national agencies were drawn to the area. Civilian Conservation Corps
crews arrived in the Lewis River Valley in the early 1930s, and continued to
serve in the region until the late 1950s. Camp Speelyai, at Yale, was established
to provide workers to assist with the continuing salvage of burned timber from
the 1902 Yacolt Burn and a Yale Valley fire in 1933. Another CCC camp was
set up near the present-day Swift Dam in the 1950s, to provide support for the
construction of Swift Dam.
In the 1910s, the newly-created US Forest Service did extensive work on and
along the Lewis River Trail, establishing ranger stations for “forest guard” duties
in the brand-new Columbia National Forest (later the Gifford Pinchot National
Forest). The Lewis River Trail began at Cougar, where the wagon road from
Woodland ended at that time. A ranger station at Cougar provided housing,
storage, pasturage, and equipment supply services for more remote outposts.
Sea Reach Ltd • 146 NE yamhill Street • Sheridan, OR draft 3 • November 2008 • page 66