Before the advent of modern chainsaws and logging
machinery, the hard work of the lumber industry was done by men known as lumberjacks.
Working out of remote camps, lumberjacks developed a process and division of labor to transform a mighty tree into kindling by hand.
“Fallers” did the actual job of felling a tree with axes and saws. Once felled and delimbed, a tree was either cut into logs by a “bucker,” or skidded or hauled to a railroad or river for transportation. Sometimes chutes with flowing water called log flumes were built to transport logs down mountainous terrain.
The brawny culture and curious practices of lumberjacking captured the popular imagination: log flumes inspired amusement park rides, and log rolling — balancing atop a floating, rolling log — became a competitive sport.
With the invention of motor vehicles, chainsaws and other machinery, the old culture faded. Modern workers in the lumber industry are known simply as loggers.
1902
Lumberjacks pose with a fir tree in Washington.
IMAGE: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
1901
Lumberjacks pose with a 12-foot-wide fir tree.
IMAGE: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
1918
Three lumberjacks pose by a large Douglas fir ready for felling in Oregon.
IMAGE: CORBIS
1905
A lumberjack and two women pose in front of a tree near Seattle, Washington.
IMAGE: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
1917
Loggers hold a cross-cut saw across a giant Sequoia tree's trunk in California.
IMAGE: A. R. MOORE/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE/CORBIS
1902
Lumberjacks undercut a giant sequoia tree in California.
IMAGE: CORBIS
1917
Loggers and a 10-mule team prepare to fell a giant Sequoia tree in California.
IMAGE: A. R. MOORE/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE/CORBIS
c. 1892
Loggers stand in the trunk of a tree they chopped down at Camp Badger in Tulare County, California. The tree was logged for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
IMAGE: CORBIS
1904
Lumberjacks pose on the stump of a tree which was displayed at St. Louis World's Fair.
IMAGE: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
March 15, 1904
A logging crew stands among cut old growth longleaf pine in Vernon Parish, Louisiana.
IMAGE: CORBIS
April 28, 1937
Loggers walk the surface of a log jam on Minnesota's Littlefork River seeking a tall, strong log with which to build a loading boom.
IMAGE: CORBIS
August 1907
Men stand on piles of cut trees in rural New York.
IMAGE: U.S. GOV'T AGRICULTURE FOREST SERVICE/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE/CORBIS
c. 1910
Lumberjacks float lumber down the Columbia River in Oregon.
IMAGE: UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD/CORBIS
