Primary Sources

Lumbering

From Minneapolis to Aitkin

Camp Was Two Days' Walk from Aitkin:

  • "The First Day Out..."
  • Crossing the Mississippi
  • Spending the Night

The Lumber Camp:

  • Cook Shack
  • Sleep Camp
  • Blacksmith Shop
  • Stables
  • Filer's Shop
  • Office and Store
  • Outhouse

Women in the Lumber Camp

What's so Great about White Pine?

What about Other Trees?

"We Left Camp Before It Was Light in the Morning..."

"But in Spite of These Drawbacks..."

Why Log in the Winter?

Who Were These Men?

In 20 More Years, Minnesota's Giant White Pine Forest Would Be Entirely Cut.

  • "....The Standing Pine Which Is Still Left..."
  • Why Was All the Pine Logged?
  • What Happened When the Pine Was Gone?

Why These Lengths?

How Would a Lumber Crew Move a 2,000-Pound Log?

  • Roads
  • Loading
  • Sledding
  • Teamsters
  • Unloading

Lunch

A Recipe for Boston Baked Beans

Cooking Tools

"...A Symphony in Tin."

"...Thirty Dollars a Month and Board for the Sawyers, Undercutters and Teamsters."

How Dirty Was the Sleep Camp?

Wasn't It Cold at Night?

What Did They Do for Entertainment?

What's That Boot?

How Much Wood Is 40,000 to 50,000 Logs?

How Did They Get All Those Logs down Such Skinny Rivers?

Who Was the Crew?

What Are Those Poles?

Eating

Logjam

How Did They Know Whose Logs Were Whose?

Sawmilling

Some of the Adventures:

  • Sledding
  • Marbles
  • Baseball
  • "My Family Lived..."

Washington Avenue, 1910

"...Other Wood Products Factories."

Another Sawmill Neighborhood

Other Sawmill Towns

Streetcars

Lunch Bucket

The Northland Pine Company Sawmill

Job Descriptions:

  • Pond Men
  • Chief Sawyer
  • Dogger and Setter

What Are Those Belts?

Dangers of the Job

Job Descriptions:

  • Trimmer Operators

In the Lumberyard

Filing Shop

"The Vast Pineries Were Gone..."

Engine House No. 18

Fire Helmet and Bucket

Fire Engine

Flames Sweep Lumberyard

Farming

Where Is Marshall?

What Is the Prairie?

Why Are There so Few Trees on the Prairie?

Want to Read the Full Letters?

The Grasshopper Plague of 1874

"...Leaky Ten Foot Shanty"

What Do They Burn in the Stove to Make Breakfast and Heat the House?

What Is a Homestead?

Did Many Women Really Take Homesteads?

Where Was the Carpenter's Land?

The Carpenters in the Census

Little Town on the Prairie

What Did the Railroad Do for the Town?

How Did They Build Houses out Here Where There Are No Trees?

To Buy Lumber...

The Prairie Schooner

What Did the Carpenters Do in the Winter?

What Did a Farmer Do in Spring?

Why Weren't They in School?

"Earlier Inhabitants"

Tools of the Farmhouse

Hints on Butter-Making

Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Hired Hands

What Is That Machine?

Threshing

What Happens to the Wheat after Harvesting?

Machinery, Productivity, and Debt

Bonanza Farms

What Work Do Cows Do?

Changes to the Farming Life

The Carpenter Farm: What They Have, What They Produce

Flourmilling

E.V's Article Was Published in 1886. Want to Read the Full Text?

E.V. Is Wrong about the First Mills. The First Mills Were Really....

What's so Important about St. Anthony Falls?

Again, E.V. Is a Little off on His Facts. Farmers in the Southern Part of the State Had Been Selling Wheat for Years.

Why Did the a Mill Explode?

Washburn, Pillsbury, and Others Got Their Money from Another Minnesota Industry.

Why Did Older Mills Dislike Spring Wheat?

Was Minneapolis Flour Really That Good? Their Advertisements Said It Was.

"Railroads Were Built..."

"...Towns Sprang up as If by Magic..."

"...And the Bare Plains Were Turned into Wheat Fields"

"Twenty-six Great Flouring-mills..."

What Are the Effects of the Milling Industry on Farmers?

Did Farming Become Big Business?

An Official Diagram of a New Process Mill

Working in the Mills:

  • Was It Hard Work?
  • More Machines than People
  • "...A Skilled Class of Workingmen..."

Packing

Flour in Barrels or Sacks?

Where Did the Flour Go?