Klamath Heritage: Lumber Like you Don't See Any More

Lumber like you don’t see anymore. (Klamath County Museum)

Klamath County Museum’s Photo of the Week for January 27, 2019, shows a mill worker beside a stack of planks at Pelican Bay Lumber Co. in Klamath Falls. No date was recorded for this photo.

Pelican Bay was the leading lumber company in Klamath Falls for several years, starting from when it began operations in 1911. The company had the first planing mill in the county. The company’s sawmill was destroyed by fire in June 1914, and again in September 1919. The company had a payroll of more than 500 when the second fire struck. The company’s third lumber plant, which began operations in April 1920, was the county’s first entirely electrified sawmill.

The thickness (4”?) and width of the boards – sawn from old-growth timber that would be hard to find today – is impressive. Such heavy-duty planks were often used for industrial flooring, as exemplified by the double-layer floor seen in the photo. The stacked boards are “stickered” with thinner boards running crossways to allow air flow in the dry kiln. The planks are stacked on a cart that moved on rails through the kiln. Drying planks of this thickness would have required extra time in the kiln.

Pelican Bay continued operations until 1946. The mill operated under the name Pelican Pine Manufacturers in 1947. The plant was sold in 1948 to Caradco, a forefunner of Jeld-Wen, which took over in 1960. More on Pelican Bay in next week’s Photo of the Week.

Press release provided from the Klamath County Museum.