Located within Collier State Park Logging Museum are a number of historical interpretive displays that highlight the rich logging history of this region. This display is the fourth that visitors encounter while experiencing a self-guided walking tour of logging exhibits. This display's main verbiage reads:
New Muscle in the Forest
Steam-Powered Logging
Steam drove the industrial revolution and it changed the course of logging and lumbering. In the late nineteenth century steam generated new muscle to move heavy logs and lumber. Construction of railroads to Klamath Falls and Bend between 1908 and 1912 made it possible to bring in heavy, steam-powered equipment for logging and milling. The new technology demanded greater investment of capital by larger and larger companies and the recruitment of workers trained to use the new machinery.
A "Donkey" Powered by Steam
In 1881 John Dolbeer,
a California mechanic who had worked on ships, fastened a steam engine on a wooden sled. He used the engine and a set of gears to power and pull rope through a capstan or drum. When the logger fixed the rope to a log, the Dolbeer steam donkey provided the energy to yard it across the forest or out of a canyon.
In time, cables replaced rope and stretched for hundreds of feet.
Loggers could lift and move heavy logs and penetrate more rugged terrain.
Sawmills Powered by Steam
Steam engines, fueled by scrap wood, bark, and sawdust, operated twenty-four hours a day to run chains in logways to move logs from ponds to saws. Steam provided the power for flippers to turn cants, beams, and lumber during the sawing process. Steam drove saws, designed to cut the largest of logs. Steam heat poured through dry kilns to finish lumber for custom retail sales. Steam technology transformed both logging and lumbering.