Thursday, April 9, 2020

“Logging a big load, Michigan.” Dated December 1901


9 comments:

  1. I would think that more than two horses to pull that would be better.

    Thanks for the post.
    Paul L. Quandt

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  2. Must be some super oats they feed those horses....

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  3. Load is only a little bit larger than a typical sled load. The horses appear in good physical shape. They can handle this without too much problem. Sled is on frozen ground, possibly with steel runners (Logging was a winter time only industry until the invention of the "Big wheel" by Mr. Overton in Manistee, MI). Horses will have caulked shoes to hold better on icy surfaces. The problem is not how to get up the hill, it's how to slow or stop down hill.

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  4. "...it's how to slow or stop down hill." I can see where that would be a problem.
    Thanks for the information.

    Paul

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  5. Meanwhile local folk are upset that two horses pull those little tourist two-person carriages around the city! "Animal cruelty". Those animals are so well treated!

    First growth hard core logging. But surely there is at least another team to help haul that load. I hope there was but I doubt it.

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  6. wow, no one recognized the world's largest load ever moved by two horses, that was part of the 1893 Worlds Fair? https://www.facebook.com/michiganskeweenawpeninsula/posts/the-worlds-fair-1893-load-of-logs-36055-feetlogs-were-harvested-about-an-hour-so/10156410322650081/

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  7. "1893 World's Fair Load

    This load of white pine was cut on the Nestor Estate near Ewen, Michigan, in Ontonagon County in the Upper Peninsula. It was a world's record load of more than 36,000 board-feet of lumber. The two horses did indeed pull the load approximately a quarter of a mile. It was then loaded onto railcars, along with the sled, and sent to Chicago. The load was reloaded as part of the Michigan Lumber exhibit at the 1893 Columbia Exposition."

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  9. The logs averaged eighteen feet in length. This load was decked by a chain and a team of horses. It was hauled by a team on iced roads to the Ontonagon river, then rafted in the spring to the nearest railroad where it was loaded onto nine flatcars and shipped to the Chicago World's Fair

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