Section II

“No forest could withstand the onslaught of the lumber industry during the first two decades of the twentieth century.”

Roy B. Clarkson, historian and botanist | Tumult on the Mountains: Lumbering in West Virginia, 1770–1920

With the introduction of railroad lines and new logging technology, large lumber companies could harvest, transport, and process their previously untapped timber tracts. The ability to cut and move timber in mass quantities made logging highly profitable, and wealthy investors were quick to finance expensive ventures into remote timberlands. The industry transformed into one of the largest economic drivers in West Virginia—producing billions of board feet of lumber and millions of dollars in profit.

This period of temporary prosperity was accompanied by transformations in the region’s cultural and physical landscape. Rich capitalists and middle-class professionals promoted the notion of progress through modernization—arguing that industrialization would bring growth and civility to the region. Boom towns grew up around the large timber operations, and some lumber operators built schools, churches, and company homes for their workers. These company towns, however, were typically segregated by race and ethnicity with amenities for blacks and immigrants often inferior to those offered to native-born whites. 

While most farmers welcomed the sale of their land to eager corporate buyers, land agents and lawyers pressured others into selling off property. With fewer and smaller farms in the region, locals saw their economic independence dissipate, and they increasingly relied on wage labor to support their families. Though many could purchase cars, radios, and other luxuries with paychecks from timber work, their wages were paltry compared to the vast wealth amassed by the lumber barons.

Like many industrial boosters, Andrew Price—a corporate lawyer and editor of The Pocahontas Times—believed that the virgin forests were “a sacrifice we must make to progress.” Lumber companies wiped out the timberlands—destroying wildlife habitat, despoiling land, and diminishing biodiversity in the region.

 

 

 

By 1900, most of the commercial-grade timber adjacent to navigable streams in the Allegheny Highlands had been removed. To meet the demand for lumber across the United States, logging companies turned to new technologies that could tackle the challenges of harvesting timber from mountainous terrain. Specialized gear systems gave steam locomotives, like the popular Shay engine, the power and maneuverability to pull railcars up steep grades and reach remote stands of timber.

 

 

 

Loading logs onto railroad cars by hand was extremely laborious and time-consuming work that slowed down logging operations. Introduced in West Virginia around 1900, the steam loader sped up the process by replacing muscle power with machines. Usually mounted on a flat railroad car, the log loader was a crane-like hoist with a set of tongs attached to a cable. An operator in the cab of the loader guided the crane to a log, grasped it with the tongs, and then lifted it onto a railcar.

 

 

 

The steam skidder was another piece of heavy equipment that revolutionized logging in the mountains. With its system of overhead cables, the skidder made it possible to log not only downhill but also uphill. These machines pulled timber out of canyons, over ridges, and through swampy ground where railroad tracks could not be laid.

 

In addition to more efficient logging technologies, wood-byproduct industries—like paper and leather production—boosted profits for timber companies and hastened the depletion of forest resources.

Commercial logging operations sold chestnut, oak, and hemlock bark to tanneries, which needed this tannin-rich byproduct to make leather. As industrialized logging made tree bark more available, the tanning of animal hides—once a small-scale trade in Appalachia—transitioned to a commercial industry.

Although it reduced logging waste by providing a use for bark, leather tanning produced pollutants that contaminated nearby waterways. Additionally, the demand for tannins further incentivized the destruction of chestnut trees, even after a deadly blight began wiping them out.

Before stripped of their timber, the forests served as a natural sponge—retaining moisture, controlling runoff from rain and snow, and keeping topsoil in place. The loss of trees in large quantities limited the absorption of rainfall, which contributed to streams running dry in the hot summer months and flooding during cooler, rainier seasons. Additionally, sparks from machinery and careless loggers ignited sawdust and forest debris, starting fires that burned forest floors down to rocky subsoil.

At higher elevations, erosion caused by logging and fires washed silt and sawdust into waterways, clogging streams and harming aquatic life. Further downstream, flowing water picked up drainage from tanneries, pulp mills, sawmills, and towns that emptied waste directly into rivers. In 1911, the West  Virginia  Geological  Survey reported that  water  in the                                                                                                                            Cheat River “put  locomotives out  of  commission" and "took                                                                                                                                the hair off the legs of cattle…and was fatal when they drank it.”

The commercial influence of logging towns on the surrounding countryside bound rural West Virginians to wage labor, a cash economy, and the materialism of modern American culture. The timber industry brought jobs and modern conveniences—as well as expectations of “civilized” behavior—to the West Virginia mountains. Behavioral standards, religious practices, and consumerism modeled by timber company management dictated social norms in the timber camps.

Once the railroad reached Marlinton in 1900, manufactured products like clothing and furniture were easily imported into Pocahontas County.  Mountaineers became increasingly dependent on packaged food and  other store-bought  goods                                                                                                                               as forests and wild game  disappeared.  The deep  connection                                                                                                                               that residents had to their natural environment began to wane.