Numbered Camps with Numbered Days

Numbered Camps with Numbered Days. . , You are standing near the site of Camp 70, one of the numbered logging camps built by the Babcock lumber Company of Davis during the early 1900s. Temporary camps like these were located along railroad lines. Babcock Lumber built the railroads to bring in workers to harvest and to transport Canaan Valley’s red spruce timber., The company provided housing and meals for workers in these camps. The housing consisted of small wooden structures called shanties which were lifted onto railcars and transported to wherever they were needed. The company fenced 12,000 acres of its already timbered property on which they stabled and cared for the work horses, grew crops, and raised cattle to provide food for their hungry logging crews., By the early 1920s almost all of the Valley’s red spruce was gone. The once bountiful valley was left barren. Loggers and logging companies pulled up their rail lines and left. Almost all evidence of their existence is now gone except for an occasional coal “clinker” or railroad spike., Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service encourages ongoing efforts to restore the red spruce forest and the habitat it provides for a large number of rare wildlife species, such as northern goshawk, Cheat Mountain salamander, and saw-whet owl.,

Did you know? , 🐦 Red spruce harvested in Canaan Valley fed a paper and shipping crate industry in Davis but most was cut into lumber to supply a huge construction boom i the eastern United States. , 🐦 The Canaan region yielded more than 3 billion board feet of lumber from 1885-1924. , 🐦 The population in Davis grew from 900 in 1889 to 3200 in 1915 as people came to work in the lumber industries. In 2000, there were less than 700 people living in Davis. , 🐦 Logging and other human activities have reduced the original spruce forest in West Virginia by 90%. , 🐦 West Virginia's spruce forests provide habitat for plant and animal communities more commonly found in areas of New England and Canada. , 🐦 From 2005-2009 more than 36,000 red spruce trees were planted on the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge through the cooperative efforts of several organizations and universities. Restoration efforts are ongoing.

, [Captions:] , Temporary railroads were built by lumber companies to reach timber in remote areas with rugged and wet terrain., These men take a break from constructing a stringer railroad like the one in the photo above. Notice the large notch cut in the log., Lumber mill pod filled with logs, Blackwater River, Davis