The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., May 27, 1938, page 1
LUMBER RAILWAY GETS UNDER WAY
Klickitat River Project Largest of Its Kind in the West
THIRTY MILES LONG
To Reach Out to Glenwood. Expect to Finish Job This Fall
The J. Neils Lumber company plans to start laying steel
Monday morning on the biggest private railway now under construction in the
west.
The first car load of rails are due to arrive this week
from Libby, Mont., where rails are giving way to trucks and tractors. They
will be laid by a crew of 10 or 12 men, starting at the mill at Klickitat
in working up the river.
Fall Completion Hoped
By late fall the company expects to connect its mill
at Klickitat with its new woods camp at Draper Springs, two and a half miles
west of Glenwood, a distance of a little more than 30 miles. About 14 miles
of the road grade is already completed in one stretch, while about five more
miles has been a feat of Paul Bunyan pro-
Rathert, logging
superintendent in charge of the job, reports.
Construction of the road grade itself has been a feat
of Paul Bunyan proportions. Two men have built the grade, using a steam shovel
and a caterpillar used both as a bulldozer and to haul a dump trailer.
Grade Builders Persistent
Working steadily and expertly, Morris Hathaway, the shovel
runner and his cat man the expect to complete the 30 miles of grade in less
than three years at a phenomenally low cost. The cost is estimated at little
more than $250,000.
A crew of no more than a dozen men first cleared the
right-of-way through the timber, while a crew of ten men has been employed
drilling and blasting the stubborn basalt rock which makes the job one of
the heaviest undertaken by any concern, private or public. The two men have
done the rest.
[HOME]
© Jeffrey L. Elmer