A Story About Visiting a Spruce Camp in 1918

Spruce soldier with truck hauling logs in the Washington forest

I was the fortunate recipient of scans from a souvenir book published in 1918 for the 53rd Spruce. After extracting the text, I was able to reproduce this story from the book. It details the experience of a "theoretical" visitor to the lumber camp.

Some of the details of the "story" refer the photographs published in the souvenir book itself (12 meg PDF).

I have "modernized" the layout of the story for this web page, added a little editing notes (in [] braces). If you wish to see the transcription of the original text, go to the souvenir book text as extracted.

INTRODUCTION

The following story is of an imaginary visitor taking an imaginary trip to the camps of the Fifty-third Spruce Squadron, stationed seven miles east of Enumclaw, Wash., on McClellan Pass Highway.

In it he tells and illustrates with beautiful photographs of the complete trip and operation as he saw it with his own eyes.

"AUBURN? Yes, sir," replied the conductor, "this is Auburn." So I got off the train and began making my search for a way to get to the camp of the Fifty-third Spruce Squadron which was supposed to be seven miles east of Enumclaw.

The name "Enumclaw" was new to me, and where it lay was a mystery, but it was up to me to get there, so I began asking question. After asking, I found that a car could be hired at Williams' which would take me direct to camp by way of Enumclaw.

While searching for a car I noticed an OD [olive drab] colored Ford with a S. P. D. [Spruce Production Division] sign on it. In it sat a soldierly looking officer, evidently waiting for some one. Approaching him for light [sic], I started a conversation which led to my telling him of my destination. He introduced himself as Capt. Powers of the Fifty-third Squadron, and told me to jump into the car, and that he would be glad to take me to the camp. I gladly accepted his invitation, and soon was on my way up the highway towards Enumclaw, Auburn left behind.

The scenery was beautiful and, together with a good road, it made the trip very enjoyable.

Enumclaw was soon reached, although it is seventeen miles from Auburn. The first thing that impressed me was the school house, which is somewhat of an unusually large structure for a town the size of Enumclaw. Most homes are of the latest bungalow type, with gardens that show good care. We did not stop long enough to make very much of a survey, but the town surely looks prosperous.

Proceeding on our journey to camp, via McClellan Pass Highway, we came to the White River mill, which I learned has done all the sawing of spruce taken out by the Squadron. This is where I came into contact with the boys of the Squadron for the first time.

On the shore of the mill pond were several loaded trucks waiting their turn to be unloaded at the dump, while out on the pond was a crew of soldiers busily engaged rafting spruce logs to the mill.

Leaving this busy scene, we continued our ride up the winding highway towards camp. On our way to camp we were met several times by heavily loaded trucks on their way to the mill pond. After a half hour's ride we arrived at camp.

The camp is an interesting site, patterned after the regular United States Training Camp, with its long wooden barracks, mess hall, the rows of tents with their company streets and its well kept parade ground.

After the noonday meal I was allowed to take several snap shots of the boys, and was then accompanied by the commanding officer around the camp. He showed me the different buildings, and at last we came to a building unique in structure and purpose. It is the camp recreation hall, a spacious with elevated stage in front, and all electrically lighted.

Here are held the weekly picture shows, social dances and lectures of interest to the men.

After viewing the camp, I was escorted to the woods to where the real scene of action was.

Here was a crew of men skidding in logs and cants with teams.

I heard a continuous "toot, toot" of steam whistles, and on inquiry was told it was the signalling of the donkey engines skidding logs.

Leaving the highway, we walked along a plank road into the heart of the virgin spruce forest, until we came to one of the steam skidders.

"Here is Donkey No. 3," remarked the Captain. And here was a crew of selected men from every timbered section of the United States. Everybody seemed to be in a hurry, and interested in the great cause for which they were working.

"Let us not stop here," said the Captain; "let us begin at the very beginning, so that you can get a clear understanding of the operation."

The beginning wasn’t so very far off, for I heard a loud shriek, warning of timber.

By hurrying, we were able to get pretty close to the scene where the men were falling a beautiful specimen of "King" Spruce.

Down it came with a crash, and the buckers were soon busy bucking it into logs of proper length. After sniping one end of the log, it is ready for skidding.

Every once in a while I could still hear the "toot, toot" of the donkeys, and being very much interested from my first glimpse I became very anxious to get to where I could see one at close range. In my anxiousness to see one of these steam monsters in action, I forgot all, hur- ried and, all to my sorrow, tripped over a moss-covered root, which sent me headlong into a soft boggy hole. Crawling out on my hands and knees the best way I could, and with a clumsy feeling I looked around to see if anybody had seen me. One of the men had more than seen me, and soon had the news spread throughout the entire crew. Well, the joke was on me that time, and at the suggestion of the firemen I walked over to the donkey and dried my clothes.

The Captain had remained behind to talk to the head faller and had not seen me fall. When he saw my wet and muddy clothes, he burst out laughing, and it was taken up by myself and the men around the donkey. That seemed like an introduction, and when the boys heard from the Captain that I had come to see the operation they did their utmost best to make my visit interesting.

First the yarding was explained; how a choker is placed around the sniped end of the log, and then the signal of probably "hi" or "hi, hi, hi," if they want to go slow. The whistle, or "punk" as he is called, pulls the wire, and thus passes on the signal to the engineer.

Chasers are employed to follow up the log, and whenever it becomes hung up on a stump or tree they give the "hi" signal, which means stop. "Hi, hi" is given next, which means "skinner back." The choker is then reset to kick around the obstruction. Again the "hi" or "hi, hi-hi, hi," and the log is soon on the landing ready for loading.

The loading is also dne [sic] by the donkey.

A well guyed forty-foot pole, or gin pole as it is called, is erected opposite the center of the landing. At the top is placed a block, and the line is then run through from the loading spool of the donkey to the landing.

A croch line with a large hook on each end is fastened to the end of the loading line.

The landing was full, and a truck was backing its way alongside. When all was set the loaders placed these hooks on each end of the log and gave the engineer and spool tender the signal to roll her on easy. From one to three logs are loaded this way on the trucks.

By the time the truck was ready to pull out my clothes were dry, so I thanked the boys, and moved down to Donkey No. 2.

This is Donkey No. 2, and this crew was so busy that they hardly noticed me. I later was told that there was a certain amount of competition between the rival dokey crews, with each trying to beat the other’s output. The results proved more than satisfactory in the output of the camp.

Seeing that their line of work was only a repetition of that of Donkey No. 3, we moved still further around to No. 4.

Donkey No. 4 was a large, powerful monster, but unfortunately out of order at the time.

This is all for this camp. Now, let us take a trip up to Camp 6-B. Being only too glad to see all, I consented. After a nine mile ride, over a still more beautiful winding highway, we arrived at Camp 6-B.

This camp was only a temporary camp and only for the use of one donkey and a comparatively small crew. Most of the boys were at work and, only having a limited amount of time to get back to Auburn, we did not linger long.

Soon we were back to 6-A, and arrived in time to see a photographer taking some pictures of the trucks and of the men of the Transportation Detachment.

This detachment takes care of all transportation, logs, supplies, men, or whatever is needed at camp.

The first picture was of six trucks purposely posed to show all. The second was the com- missary truck, which makes two trips a day to town for mail and provisions. I was told they had taken two others before I had arrived. One was of a load of logs on the plank road, and the other of an empty passing a full.

Photography was now the topic, which led to an album that one of the boys brought out to show me. In it was a most interesting collection of snap shots dealing with the past life at camp and of the surroundings.

The getting back to Auburn had been worrying me, but the photographer soon fixed me up. So at that I thanked the Captain, took my leave with regrets that I could not stay longer.

We owe our success to the good leadership of Capt. Powers and the the sincerity of Capt. Nace, who has preserved the good health of every man in the Squadron.

A Story About Visiting a Spruce Camp in 1918

INTRODUCTION

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