In the US, industrial logging has been a staple of the nation’s roots, dating all the way back to the arrival of the settlers and the founding of Jamestown in 1607.
Since then, it has been an important part of our nation’s economic structure. While the lumber industry was mainly for building ships in those times, it soon became a source of profit with imports and exports as the New England region became the central hub.
By the late 1780s, British sea captain John Meares recognized the excellence of Northwest timber for ship masts and spars.
In the mid-1800s, the process of making paper from wood pulp was established. William Rittenhouse founded America’s first paper mill in Germantown, Penn., 1690, but until the middle of the 19th century, paper was produced from rags and other materials.
The Pacific Northwest region had its first sawmill in the late 1820s. By 1910, Washington was the nation's largest lumber-producing state. Logging companies in Washington were harvesting more than 1 billion board feet of timber annually, and the industry employed almost two-thirds of the state's wage earners.
In the same year, Idaho was already producing an incredible 745 million board feet and was distributing on a national level.
One of the biggest moves in the logging industry came with acts by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early 1930s as he attempted to put some restrain on the competition of logging in an attempt to help salvage what seemed to be a dwindling line of work with the National Industrial Recovery Act.
For more info, see links below:
www.woodsplitterdirect.com - The Amazing History of Logging in the United States
www.woodsplitterdirect.com - History of Logging in the United States
tdn.com - Rooted in Lumber
www.seattlepi.com - A tale of the Northwest's logging past
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