Payette River Log Drives
Extracted from "River Tales of Idaho" by Darcy Williamson, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, 1997. google books
The Bayse-Walker Sawmill was established in 1872 on the Payette River, near the community of Martinville. The town was later named Emmettsville, then shortened to Emmett. A few years after the Bayse-Walker sawmill was built, the Cold Springs Lumber Mill was established in the same area.
Timber cut in the near-by mountains was brought to the mills by oxen. By 1875, however, local trees were used up and the cutters moved farther up the Payette drainage, Oxen hauled logging equipment over the Boise Basin trail to the South and North Fork logging areas in the autumn. Crews worked in those areas throughout the winter.
Trees were felled with broadaxes and crosscut saws. The limbed timber was dragged through the snow by oxen and stacked on decks built along the Payette River. During the spring runoff, from mid May through mid June, logs were released from the decks to float downstream to the mills.
Loggers followed pack trails along the river, watching the logs. Jams often formed at bends or on gravel bars. Men leaped onto the jams and pried the jammed logs loose with Peavey hooks. When the logs broke loose it wasn't always possible to return to shore, so the loggers rode logs downriver until they could jump to safety.
Sometimes logs lodged on gravel bars and workers couldn't get them loose. Teams of large draft horses were used in such situations. Cables were looped around the ends of the logs and tied to the horses. The horses strained against the cables and worked the logs loose. The loggers quickly released the cables before the current carried the logs and the horses downstream.
One of the earliest log drive fatalities occurred on June 28, 1876. Walter Dingley was driving logs for the Cold Springs Lumber Company when some timber jammed against boulders in the middle of a frothing rapid. Dingley jumped onto the jam and pried loose a large log lodged between the rocks. When the log popped free, it stood on end and knocked Dingley into the river. The logger was trapped in the moving mass of timber and drowned.
In 1883, the Oregon Short Line Railroad needed ties while building a section of track across southern Idaho. The firm of Coe and Carter, from Omaha, Nebraska, was hired to furnish 300,000 ties. It sent its own logging crew, a group of men from Maine, Minnesota and Michigan, to the North Fork drainage. They were a different breed, known as "Log Hogs."
Log Hogs didn't follow the drives from the shore. They floated behind the logs in narrow, deep-hulled wooden boats called bateaux. Each bateau carried six to eight men. The craft was steered by men in the bow and stern using long poles. The other occupants rowed. Cables were used to lower the craft over hazardous rapids. But the boats, designed for less turbulent Eastern rivers, frequently swamped or flipped in the wild Payette. With Log Hogs floating the river with the logs, deaths became an annual occurrence. The rough and rugged men considered drowning an occupational hazard and refused to give up their boats.
The clannish group of log drivers had their own dress code. They wore denim pants cut off just above the knee, hob nail boots, red woolen shirts, gray wool mittens and short-brimmed black felt hats. They hit the mill towns at the end of a drive ready to celebrate. They tossed back glasses of Red Top whiskey, got in street fights and danced holes in saloon floors with their hob nail boots. Log Hogs spent money freely and were welcome additions to the local economy.
In 1890, an attempt to float logs down the upper South Fork of the Payette to the Horseshoe Bend mill claimed seven Log Hogs at Big Falls. The falls, located in South Fork Canyon, is one of the most challenging sections of the Payette River. During high water there is a long wave train leading to the twenty-five-foot waterfall. The bateaux were always lowered through the falls. The ill-fated men either decided to challenge the falls or failed to spot landmarks in time to avoid the cataract.
The spring of 1894 brought flooding along the Payette River. Although the logs moved quickly downriver with the high water, the Log Hogs faced an unusual problem when they reached the Central Lumber Company mill in Emmett. The mill was gone!
The river current had been cutting away at the northeast corner of the mill for a week before the pen-stock, housing the big turbine wheels, broke loose. It was carried downstream until it stuck on a gravel bar. Within two days, the river washed away twelve feet under the corner of the mill foundation. Because it was only a matter of time before the entire structure would topple into the river, mill employees removed all the machinery. Then the building was disassembled board-by-board and stacked a safe distance from the river. The mill was rebuilt and back in operation later that summer.
Flooding occurred again in 1904. The Payette River Basin had a heavy snowpack and the river was swollen and extremely dangerous. On May 26, four Log Hogs flipped their bateau in the rapids where the South and Middle forks join. The men were part of a crew bringing a large log drive to Prestel's Sawmill in Payette. The cataract was called Hell's Half Acre. Today it is known as Staircase Rapids. The river narrows and makes a steep drop through a labyrinth of boulders, holes and logs. By today's river running standards, Staircase is a Class V rapid. The bodies of the men were recovered several miles downstream.
In 1915, the Idaho Northern Railroad built a line up the North Fork of the Payette. Trees were cut in Long Valley and hand hewn into ties. The ties were floated downriver and collected at strategic points. The completion of the railroad eliminated the need for log drives. Timber now rides the rails, rather than rapids.
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