Oregon Timber Baron





I built this timber dynasty from sheer will, parlaying a small inheritance and a driving thirst for timber land into the purchase of that first parcel of virgin forest.  We logged Bear Creek Mountain by hand, a man on either side of a standing tree, muscling the teeth of a crosscut-saw blade back and forth through the bark, then pith, then heartwood, out the other side, until the weight of the tree above the widening cut broke free with a mighty crack, and the tree toppled.  Timber. 

 

Ernie was the ancestor. Ernie Whipple.  He came here with a vision and a bankroll and enough drive to amass 20,000 acres of forest land.  Old growth timber.  It was all virgin timber then.  He acquired a rock quarry, later a lumber mill.  He backed into a blade at that mill, severing his left arm just below the elbow. There was no one about so he fashioned a tourniquet with his belt, holding one end in his mouth and cinching the buckle end tight above the stub to staunch the flow of blood.  He made his way to the train station, (the railroad having come by then to haul timber,) lay down on the platform and waited four hours for the next train, which transported him to the hospital in Eugene.  He survived.


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