The Wagner Bros lumbermill

For this blog post, I thought I'd put up some more pictures from the beige album. There are so many to choose from, I could easily spend weeks or months posting on different themes from just these pictures. Here are some of the ones I found most interesting:

This is my great-grandfather Charles Wagner (left) and his brother Ralph Wagner, part way up one of the trees they were felling. Look how tiny they are compared to the tree! I can't imagine how big the whole thing must have been, or what it took to chop it down. Notice how they had to wedge boards in to stand on. I remember my grandma saying this was part of the felling process, but I can't remember exactly how (I didn't have my recorder on me when she told me).

Here's a section of a tree all tied up and ready for transport to the mill. Wonder how many truckloads like this it took to take a whole tree?

Sometimes family would come out to the forest and visit, and even pose for silly photos like this one. This is my great-great-grandmother, Mary Hoffman. I like this, because it shows that while my great-grandfather knew how to work, it also shows he took time out for family fun as well.

Here's another photo of family visitors to the worksite. The ladies are Claire Wagner (Ralph's wife), Rosie Wagner (Charles' wife), Mary Hoffman (Rosie's mother), and Blossom Wagner (Rosie's daughter and my grandma).

This is one of the trucks they used to haul the trees from the logging site to the mill. Can any of you truck afficianados out there tell me what type of truck this is? I'd like to know!

These photos are of the mill itself. Not being familiar with the milling process, I couldn't say what exactly is going on, but it looks very busy! I'm sure it was terribly loud, with all the machinery and saws going, plus the trucks hauling trees in and lumber out, and the constant moving of lumber everywhere. But as my great-grandpa did this for many years, he must have enjoyed it. Or at least gotten used to it.