Art & Words by
HOWARD B. TAYLOR

This was a Dolbeer logging donkey, built in San Francisco in 1887. The line was pulled by a vertical capstan-like drum which did not spool the line but wrapped enough to grip it. As the line, leading to the log, wrapped on the bottom of the spool, it unwrapped at the top while the line tender piled it in a figure eight.

The line was a hemp rope as big as your arm. It would have required a spool (drum) the size of a hayrack to accumulate it. When this line was wet it would stretch and stretch, finally the log would jump a few feet.

The rope lines were replaced with cables made of plough steel wire. To get the line back into the woods they used a mule or horse (which was called crow bait) and a boy to guide it. They needed but one drum on the donkey.