Lowell Prospers

Lowell Prospers. Logging Brings Growth. Just across the reservoir, Lowell took root in the 1850s at Amos D. Hyland's homestead. First called Cannon, then later dubbed Lowell, the town grew up around Hyland's general store and large hop-processing yard. Hyland also operated a ferry that crossed here, before Lowell's first covered bridge. Lowell was one of the first communities established in the valley of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River. For decades Lowell remained fairly small – a supply center and stopover to and from the upriver towns., Lowell's quiet rural life changed dramatically at the turn of the 20th century. Due to the booming growth of the Willamette Valley, changing technology, and consequently the growing need for lumber, the area's dense Douglas-fir forests (once an obstacle to farming) became a prized harvest. Lowell's population grew and valley residents found work in logging camps and sent their children to boarding school in the winter., Riding the Rails , Routes of the Southern Pacific Railroad were expanded, reaching previously inaccessible areas for harvesting trees. This enormous boost to the region's timber industry in the early 1900s provided a reliable, inexpensive, and safe method of taking lumber from the high, mountain valleys to mills and markets down-valley. With the onset of World War I, price and demand for high-quality timber increased, and consequently the railroad pushed logging operations even deeper into the mountains to fill the need.