Iron County Heritage Area
The felling of Iron County's great stands of timber began in the late 1870's. The white pine was the first to be cut. Down the Turtle River and over Lake of the Falls, buoyant pine logs were floated to sawmills further south.Spring, when the rivers were highest, was log driving time. Dams were constructed on the Turtle River here, at the Lake of the Falls, and upstream at Shea's Dam to provide the flush of water needed to push the logs downstream.
The colorful pinery days were intense, but short. By 1906 the last stands of white pine had been cut.
The valuable virgin hardwood timber that remained offered a bigger challenge - it did not float like pine. The Roddis Lumber and Veneer Company solved the problem as early as 1903 by creating a "logging railroad" extending into the timberlands west of Lake of the Falls.
By mid-1920's the "Roddis Line" railroad had spread like branches on a tree connecting 15 logging company camps to the mainline track. Timber continued to flow, by rail instead of water, to sawmills. Dwindling supplies of wood and the Great Depression forced the Roddis Line to abandon its operations in 1938, ending Iron County's logging railroad era.
| HM Number | HMVFK |
|---|---|
| Tags | |
| Marker Condition | No reports yet |
| Date Added | Monday, September 29th, 2014 at 11:44am PDT -07:00 |
| UTM (WGS84 Datum) | 15T E 719272 N 5114622 |
|---|---|
| Decimal Degrees | 46.14990000, -90.16048333 |
| Degrees and Decimal Minutes | N 46° 8.994', W 90° 9.629' |
| Degrees, Minutes and Seconds | 46° 8' 59.64" N, 90° 9' 37.74" W |
| Driving Directions | Google Maps |
| Area Code(s) | 715 |
| Closest Postal Address | At or near 825 County Park Rd, Mercer WI 54547, US |
| Alternative Maps | Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap |
Is this marker missing? Are the coordinates wrong? Do you have additional information that you would like to share with us? If so, check in.
Comments 0 comments