The Hood River Glacier, Hood River, OR., July 24, 1913, page 1
VALLEY SHOWS RAPID GROWTH
Fruits Grow To Perfection
Commercial Quantities in all Varieties Shipped - Lumber Industry Prominent
in Community - Mills Unique
Every so often it is good for the people who live in
a community to take a kind of inventory of themselves, their assets,
opportunities and their development. This week, a red letter one marked by
the second successful mid-summer celebration at Woodworth park, is an opportunity
moment for Hood River people to consider what they have. Considering the
point from which they started and the point they have reached, it can truthfully
be said that no other rural section of the United States in a dozen years'
time has made such notable progress. When it is known that just 13 years
ago, the Hood River valley began to ship out its first carload of apples,
when it is known that the big orchards of the present day for the most part
were covered with forest trees, when it is known that the families inhabiting
the district could be counted in mere terms of scores, then the man who has
come to the region in recent years to aid in the development can grasp the
extent and scope of the progress that has kept hasty and yet solid. That
pioneers, who felled the first trees and planted the first orchards know
these facts. The development of the district, the hardships and toils of
the early days, and, best of all the rewards in after years, have been a
part of their lives.
Today Hood River computes its apple harvest in the hundreds
of thousands of boxes. A pioneer in the industry in the beginning, it is
now a leader. Other districts have grown up in other parts of the district,
but the words of Hood River growers are potent.
Today the Apple Valley grows other fruits in carload
lots, as well. The pears grown here go out to the markets of the world. Hood
River cherries have been found second to none and have been handled in large
quantities during the past year.
So predominant has grown the Hood River apple that any
other industry in the valley is to a certain extent over- shadowed. Although
local people do not stop to think about it, the Hood River valley is one
of the Northwest's greatest lumber producing sections. In the Oregon Lumber
Company's plant at Dee, recently destroyed by fire, and that of the Stanley-Smith
Lumber Co., at Green Point, the community has had two of the most unique
and largest capacity mills in the country. No mills are more talked of in
lumber journals, and visitors from lumber producing sections in all parts
of the country journey here to see the plants. The Oregon Lumber Co. mill
was the first large plant ever to have been driven by electric power. The
Stanley-Smith Co. has created comment by the logging system put into execution
in the Green Point hills. The large logs are transported there by means of
cable lines and huge donkey engines, as large as can be produced by the
manufacturers.
The managers of both companies, Chas. T. Early, of the
Oregon Lumber Co., and J.E. Robertson, of the Stanley-Smith Co., have risen
to their positions because of their practical knowledge of the industry and
their executive ability. The two large plants employ, when running at capacity,
approximately 500 men, an enviable payroll anywhere. The Dee mill, the debris
of the burned plant of which is already being cleared away for the new structure
that will rise there, had a daily capacity of more than 150,000 feet. The
Stanley-Smith Company cuts 140,000 feet per each ten hours.
The latter company has as its logging foreman, Alex S.
Reid, said by lumbermen in every part of the northwest to be one of the most
experienced men in cruising, handling logging apparatus and in handling the
men under him of any in the great industry.
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© Jeffrey L. Elmer