Art & Words by
HOWARD B. TAYLOR

This lumber flume was built by Jones Lumber Co. to carry lumber from its mill in the Prune Hill area to Saginaw. It was engineered by Dad about 1903. These flumes moved lumber for a few cents per thousand board feet, a cost which makes any self-respecting railroad blush. They became obsolete as the timber remaining is on steep ground and well back, also higher.

Log flumes are rare in our history. They require over twice the lumber to build, several times the water, and smaller logs. I often rode the lumber to Hebron school on a Coast Fork flume. Here at 7 years, my surveying began as chainman at 50 cents per day.

One of Dad’s ran down Hawley Creek from the banana farm, where Uncle Bert Baughman was bull of the woods, to Divide. While in gradeschool I assisted Dad in staking its rebuild for Bohemia Lumber Company. Uncle Bert was first to rig a high lead. Dad’s invention showed leg length rod readings, no figuring.