Bay County past and present . The Lumber Woods. Notice the Yoke of Oxen. southern part of the state. Going to the lumber woods was an an-nual occurrence in farm life, as it gave the farmer the chance to makeuse of slack time. The timber was taken from the forests during the winter for tworeasons. By sprinkling, icy roads could be made by means of whichthe logs could be easily drawn to the bank of the stream, and then inthe spring during flood water, the logs could be floated down streamto the mills that were located at Bay City, where the lumber couldlater be shipped to market. It was very dif
Bay County past and present . The Lumber Woods. Notice the Yoke of Oxen. southern part of the state. Going to the lumber woods was an an-nual occurrence in farm life, as it gave the farmer the chance to makeuse of slack time. The timber was taken from the forests during the winter for tworeasons. By sprinkling, icy roads could be made by means of whichthe logs could be easily drawn to the bank of the stream, and then inthe spring during flood water, the logs could be floated down streamto the mills that were located at Bay City, where the lumber couldlater be shipped to market. It was very difiicult work to get the great masses of logs to floatdown stream even during high water, and there were many exciting 104 BAY COUNTY, PAST AND m ^ . CD X2 -e >—< o C^ CO EARLY DEVELOPMENT—LUMBERING. 105 times when one log would get caught in such a way as to cause therest to pile up in an awful mass. This was called a jam, and themost expert lumber-jacks were needed to find the log that wascausing the trouble and to loosen it so as to relieve the jam. This kindof life, both in the woods and on the logs coming down stream, wasvery dangerous, and the newspapers of those logging days had manyserious accidents to report. THE SAW MILLS. The busy season of the mills was after the spring floods hadbrought the logs to them. The amount of lumber cut during a seasonwas often limited on account of the water being so low in the springthat fewer logs than usual could be floated to the mills.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidbaycountypas, bookyear1918
