Klamath Heritage: Pelican Bay Lumber Company

Pelican Bay Lumber Company, c. 1914

Klamath County Museum’s Photo of the Week for Feb. 3, 2019, shows the Pelican Bay Lumber Co. complex north of Klamath Falls. Most of the ground seen in the center of this photo is occupied today by Jeld-Wen. This view looks south toward the Pelican City area, with Moore Mountain in the background.

Pelican Bay Lumber was the first large-scale lumber operation in Klamath County. The sprawling rows of stacked lumber seen here would have made a very impressive sight at the time. The sawmill began operations in 1912 on a site that was at that time about two miles north-northwest of Klamath Falls. The mill was strategically located where it could receive logs rafted across Upper Klamath Lake, or brought in on a spur of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The railroad’s main line runs across the foreground at lower left. The spur is seen farther on, with a switchback curving toward a covered shipping dock near the center of the photo.

Only a small portion of the sawmill building can be seen on the right edge of the photo. The “green chain” where lumber was sorted is adjacent to the mill.

Pelican Bay Lumber Co. claimed many firsts for the lumber industry in Klamath County. The company was the first to ship large quantities of lumber out of the Basin by rail, and had the first dry kiln in the county. After a fire destroyed the company’s sawmill in 1919, it built a new plant that was the first fully electrified pine mill in the western United States. Pelican Bay was also the first mill in the Klamath area to purchase a large timber sale from the U.S. Forest Service.

The dry kiln is seen just to the left of the green chain. Next is a lumber storage shed, and then the planing mill with the light-colored roof. A blowpipe carried shavings from the planing mill to the mill’s power plant, beyond the frame of this photo. Beyond the planing mill is another storage shed.

This photo was taken sometime before Pelican Bay built its box factory in 1922 at the south end of the property. The box factory building still stands beside Harbor Isle Boulevard, having been renovated as office space by Jeld-Wen. The big house seen at center also still stands, but none of the other mill facilities seen in this photo remain today.

The old Pelican Bay School (also known at Shippington School or simply Pelican School) is the long, low-profile building seen in the upper left portion of the photo. The wood-frame building served the relatively scattered residents of the area from around 1912 to 1922. A new Pelican School made of brick opened in January 1922, and still serves the area.

A home seen at center appears to have a well-established fruit orchard behind it, suggesting it might have been established before the mill. The Museum welcomes information on when the home was built. Smaller structures at right housed employees. Three company boarding houses were located east of the mill, just out of the frame of this image.

The building at left center was the company office. The road running along the left edge of the photo, past the lumber piles and school building, is known today as Lakeport Boulevard.

View this photo with a recent image at
http://www.whatwasthere.com/browse.aspx#!/ll/42.2602837036082,-121.805373454503/id/89717/info/sv/zoom/14/

Information provided from the Klamath County Museum.