Never again will we see this amazing part of our history. I was privileged to have spent time as a young boy at Camp Grisdale with my grandfather and truck driver, Anson Cleveland, and grandmother Lil Cleveland. She was a cook in camp. So sad to see this all fade into history. Our job is to keep these stories alive, honoring the men and women who lived and worked at Grisdale.
Man, I remember being in grade school and in summer playing at kneeland Park during the week, and seeing the train coming into town into Simpson mill , and it was a common site to see the rail cars loaded with huge wood on the train cars, with everyone. It was sad to see that all end. But I remember my uncle Gerald Burger saying that when he was side roding tower shows, they thought it was going to last and last. And now days people think seeing log trucks hauling 6 to 8 logs load, it is huge wood, which in a way its neat, but seeing the old growth fir trees from these years and before, is no comparison. Those probably seem huge to the people now watching this video, which they kinda are, but not compared to the monitors that were logged in the highland down in the bottom. I still like to look at the pictures of being little, and going up to where uncle Gerald had a side, and cutting firewood from buckskin logs they yarded up, and if they couldn't split it with an axe, move to a different log.
If canyon River exchange could talk, oh the stories of seeing logs from trees that were older then before columns started exploring the world or America.
I was so close in the grand scheme of things. Just about 2 decades off. Really wish I could've logged 20 years earlier.. 39:50 that old steam loco puffing made my hair stand up. What a sight and what a sound!
My Dad and Grandpa (Russell & Ted Fink) both worked at Camp Grisdale, my dad "till he was rescued by Uncle Sam's USAF in 1955" as he was fond of saying and Grandpa was a long time faller and bushler retiring from Simpson in about 1972 having started there in 1947. He was there when the first chainsaws were brought in shortly after starting there. Anyway and according to my Dad, instead of saving Camp Grisdale and even a token campground that would've told something about what was happening there during those years. Which would've been preferable to what they did spend those tourist dollars on which was a medium sized sailing ship tied up to a pier in Aberdeen that didn't do much else. But my Dad did take me and my late brother up there and was telling us all about what it was like to work there, which in the early 1950's was a very wet and desolate place. Remember this is the temperate rainforest of western Washington state where the trees grew big because of all the rain that fell there. Grisdale got over 160 inches of rain per year and that location still gets rain like that if not even more so today!! 160 inches is a LOT of precipitation in one year - you heard me right. For comparison Seattle gets about 39 inches of rain in a "wet year"... From The Aberdeen Daily World January 9, 1969: Simpson Timber Company’s Camp Grisdale was the wettest spot in the continental United States in 1968. That was the unofficial verdict from the U.S. Weather Bureau in Seattle this week when they received word of the 190.2 inches of precipitation recorded and reported from Camp Grisdale.
Wow big pickles, never see those again, and never see a mill that would take them, not the home Depot peeker, pine, blessing to those men who had the Skil and the will to survive yesterday, and its in some of us today, yeah come on. Loaded truck on the down at the ten.
Never again will we see this amazing part of our history. I was privileged to have spent time as a young boy at Camp Grisdale with my grandfather and truck driver, Anson Cleveland, and grandmother Lil Cleveland. She was a cook in camp. So sad to see this all fade into history. Our job is to keep these stories alive, honoring the men and women who lived and worked at Grisdale.
Thank you ! Very much for this high quality video it shows that these guys are the real deal when it comes to Olympic Peninsula Loggers.
Man, I remember being in grade school and in summer playing at kneeland Park during the week, and seeing the train coming into town into Simpson mill , and it was a common site to see the rail cars loaded with huge wood on the train cars, with everyone. It was sad to see that all end. But I remember my uncle Gerald Burger saying that when he was side roding tower shows, they thought it was going to last and last. And now days people think seeing log trucks hauling 6 to 8 logs load, it is huge wood, which in a way its neat, but seeing the old growth fir trees from these years and before, is no comparison. Those probably seem huge to the people now watching this video, which they kinda are, but not compared to the monitors that were logged in the highland down in the bottom. I still like to look at the pictures of being little, and going up to where uncle Gerald had a side, and cutting firewood from buckskin logs they yarded up, and if they couldn't split it with an axe, move to a different log.
oh yeah. and I swear they scheduled the trains to choke downtown just before work/school, lunch and going home, lol
Super cool to watch
If canyon River exchange could talk, oh the stories of seeing logs from trees that were older then before columns started exploring the world or America.
I was so close in the grand scheme of things. Just about 2 decades off. Really wish I could've logged 20 years earlier..
39:50 that old steam loco puffing made my hair stand up. What a sight and what a sound!
This footage is amazing. Was that steamer in daily use or was it a novelty thing for the last load out?
Im think it was a special deal for the last load. Simpson had been running diesel's i want to say
TDhis is something that we will never see agazin, so sad
Just a reminder of what a pain in the ass it was working with that oversized old growth timber.
Also what's become of the steam locomotive sound running at the time
I really dont know. It may be in storage in downtown Shelton by the mill
Did they tear everything down that was in the camp
Yes, both Camp Grisdale and Camp Govey were stripped to bare earth.
My Dad and Grandpa (Russell & Ted Fink) both worked at Camp Grisdale, my dad "till he was rescued by Uncle Sam's USAF in 1955" as he was fond of saying and Grandpa was a long time faller and bushler retiring from Simpson in about 1972 having started there in 1947. He was there when the first chainsaws were brought in shortly after starting there. Anyway and according to my Dad, instead of saving Camp Grisdale and even a token campground that would've told something about what was happening there during those years. Which would've been preferable to what they did spend those tourist dollars on which was a medium sized sailing ship tied up to a pier in Aberdeen that didn't do much else. But my Dad did take me and my late brother up there and was telling us all about what it was like to work there, which in the early 1950's was a very wet and desolate place. Remember this is the temperate rainforest of western Washington state where the trees grew big because of all the rain that fell there. Grisdale got over 160 inches of rain per year and that location still gets rain like that if not even more so today!! 160 inches is a LOT of precipitation in one year - you heard me right. For comparison Seattle gets about 39 inches of rain in a "wet year"...
From The Aberdeen Daily World January 9, 1969:
Simpson Timber Company’s Camp Grisdale was the wettest spot in the continental United States in 1968. That was the unofficial verdict from the U.S. Weather Bureau in Seattle this week when they received word of the 190.2 inches of precipitation recorded and reported from Camp Grisdale.
Jeremy Cleveland, I hauled logs for Manke Lumber, with Tom Cleveland, any relation?
Yes. Tom is one of my many cousins. As far as I know, all the Clevelands around here are of the same family.
Wow big pickles, never see those again, and never see a mill that would take them, not the home Depot peeker, pine, blessing to those men who had the Skil and the will to survive yesterday, and its in some of us today, yeah come on. Loaded truck on the down at the ten.