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W h e n L o g g i n g wa s K i n ge n Lo gg i ng wa s Ki ng
Reid Gardiner, Editor

Logging Near Darby, Montana from "The Montana Mason Magazine" Vol. 4. No. 10, November 1924
There are those who still pine (pun intended) for the old In 1906, the First Ranger Hiring Exam was established.
days and ways of Logging. Some will want to romanticize the In 1913, the University of Montana founded the School of
logging industry which includes those who lived and died in Forestry. Let us not forget the Historic Darby Ranger Station,
the forests that working class of men who grew up with and the building built between 1937 and 1939 by the Civilian
in families of Loggers. Those who have a feeling of nostalgia Conservation Corps, was the district ranger station until 1964
from a whiff of wood smoke or the sight of a Logging Truck, and should be visited the next time you are in Darby.
or maybe the seeing of a shirt of fl annel and blue jeans. Or Montana had many companies in the forest industry (to name
hearing song lyrics like "I See you are Logger, and not just a a few): Western Lumber, J. Neils, F. H. Stoltze, The Montana
common bum, "Cause no one but a logger stirs his coff ee with Improvement Company and later Blackfoot Milling and
his thumb." Manufacturing and still then part of the Anaconda Company,
In my fading memories of growing up in Libby, I can still Champion International, Crown Zellerbach, Georgia Pacifi c,
see the fl eet of logging trucks barreling down the highway St. Regis Paper and Stimson Lumber merged and left the state.
into town. Logging had long played a signifi cant role in Plum Creek Timber Co. was the last national corporation in
northwestern Montana, and Libby is among the communities Montana before it was bought by Weyerhaeuser Corp.
most forged by the timber industry, and gave us among other In 1950 in Montana there were 734 sawmills, planning mills
things the Loggers of Class A Libby High School.."The- & miscellaneous wood product workers. Timber in Montana
Loggers-Mighty-Mighty-Loggers–Libby-Loggers!" in the 1960 and 1970s was centered around western Montana,
In 1881, the Northern Pacifi c Railroad awarded a contract to notably Missoula and Libby. But by the late 1970s, the timber/
E.L. Bonner to supply material for building the railroad which logging industry in Montana was in its sad, steady decline.
included wood for railroad ties. In 1845 the fi rst known sawmill Even so today there are some 300 small Logging Companies
was established in Montana about 40 miles north of Darby in operating and 7 to 10 large Sawmills and a few small mills.
Stevensville at the St. Mary’s Mission. The sawmill was built Timber harvested in Montana in 2014 totaled 411.5 million
by Catholic missionary priest Father Anthony Ravalli at the board-feet and in 2016 Montana contributed 535 MMBF; in
site of the original St. Mary’s Mission. For reference, this was 2017, Montana harvested 183,151 thousand board feet (MBF).
just 38 years after Lewis & Clark passed through the area and Today for the most part in Darby or Libby the remnants of the
31 years before the battle of the Little Big Horn. once thriving timber industry are seen in their annual “Logger
Libby saw its fi rst sawmill 1891 near where the bridge crosses Days.” The timber industry had a good run, and many proud
the Kootenai River and was used to supply lumber to build the men and their families are part of that past.
growing town. In 1906 the Dawson Lumber Company built a
sawmill. In 1911, J. Neils and Associates bought the Dawson "I'm a Logger working in a hardwood stand, drink too
Lumber Mill, and it was later named the Libby Lumber much and not much in demand. Work hard most of the time,
Company. The J. Neils Lumber Company grew, and the town everything I've got is mine. A Polish wife, this Swedish saw
prospered, with as many as 1,000 people employed in Libby and these working hands."
in the early 1900s. It shouldn't have been a surprise to the "The Logger Song" by Terry Mcleish
town when the Stimson Lumber Mill, the town's largest single
employer closed in 2003.