Timber Made This Town

Timber Made This Town. . The Saint Maries River Valley was said to have the largest single stand of white pine in the world. Homesteaders and lumberjacks flocked here by wagon road and boats to take advantage of vast stands of western white pine, fir, tamarack and cedar. , In 1887 the Fisher brothers built the first sawmill on the St. Joe, milling lumber for frame buildings, the railroad bridge at Chatcolet and for extensive docks along the St. Maries waterfront. , Winter logging was common. Lumberjacks wearing calked boots and woolen clothes used 5' to 7' long crosscut saws and axes to fall the giant trees. Rough camps sprang up throughout the St. Joe and St. Maries river valleys. In the winter of 1905 there were ten camps on Santa Creek alone, getting out 80,000,000 board feet of timber. , Water transported the logs from the remote mountainsides. Logs were stockpiled along the streams until spring breakup, then flooded (sic) downstream. For $3.00 a day log drivers, called "river pigs" risked their lives in treacherous currents. Some died in watery graves. , Timber Industry Remains . , Over time, the railroads and roads replaced the log drive, but the timber industry remains the mainstay of St. Maries today.