#Portable log flume portable

This was due to the fact that the first section of the flume did not have as much fall and the water would run faster in a v-shaped trough than in a flat bottomed trough. Kilby’s interview the flume was V-shaped for the first 12 miles and flat bottomed for the remaining 12 miles. The flume began high on the North Fork of the Reddies River. Wyatt recalled that the trough of the flume was built of hemlock lumber and the supporting structure was made of locust. It was basically a wooden trough that carried water and allowed lumber to be floated down it. The flume was somewhat of an engineering marvel at the time.

Oxen shoes are unusual in that an oxen is a split hooved animal and require 8 separate shoes instead of the 4 required for horses and mules. Wyatt was kind enough to give me one of the oxen shoes that were used to shoe the oxen that pulled the logs to the mill. Thomas Wyatt worked for the Giant Lumber Company in a number of positions but his specialty was working on the circular saws that the sawmills used and the crosscut saws the loggers used to fell and buck up the trees. Pres Wyatt, a life long resident of Vannoy Road, remembers riding the carriage on one of the sawmills as a boy, while his father, Thomas Wyatt, set the ratchets on the carriage. The flume carried the lumber from up on the Vannoy Road to North Wilkesboro. The lumber was then hauled to the head of the flume on horse drawn wagons.

#Portable log flume portable

Teams of steers were used to pull the logs to one of twelve portable steam powered sawmills that cut the logs into lumber. The process began with men using axes and crosscut saws to fell the trees and cut then into log lengths. They also purchased a four acre lot at the corner of 10th Street and D Street which is the current location of American Drew Furniture from A.A. On the newly formed Giant Lumber Company purchased 6,167.36 acres of land and timber and 2,505.37 acres of timber rights from Judge T.B. “To buy, sell, lease, or otherwise acquire land to improve same with the erection of dwelling houses or other buildings thereon to rent, lease, or otherwise acquire, timber rights, easements and privileges connected therewith to build, construct, establish, and maintain a flume, or flumes, timber roads and other means of transportation excepting railroads to cut, saw, haul, and transport lumber, to build, construct and maintain, warehouses, depots, and platforms, for storage and preservation of lumber to build construct and operate, mills, factories, and other plants to manufacture all kinds, of articles composed of wood, and metals of any kind to buy, sell, manufacture, and otherwise deal in furniture, spokes, handles, doors, and other articles and commodities made of wood, or other materials to build construct and operate, stores for the sale of all kinds of commodities to buy, sell, keep and deal in cattle of all kinds to buy and sell lands and operate mines and to deal in all kinds of minerals, and mineral rights.” As stated in the Certificate of Incorporation the purpose of the company was to: Harper from Patterson were the founders of the company.

The Giant Lumber Company was incorporated in April 1907. With the tape in hand and some prodding from Jule Hubbard I began to work on this article. John loaned me a taped interview that Jay Anderson had done with his grandfather about the Giant Lumber Company. I hadn’t thought much more about the flume until recently during a chance conversation with John Kilby, when I learned that his grandfather, Andrew Kilby, had worked for the Giant Lumber Company that operated the flume.

He also told about a flume that had run along the river that was destroyed in the 1916 flood. During these walks he would talk to me about his growing up and riding ponies along the river. Growing up, my father Bill Casey, would take me on walks along the Reddies River.