Logging: Sawyer-Goodman Logging Operations

The Sawyer-Goodman Lumber Company had a large logging operation, southwest of the Dunn Mine in Iron County. This was southwest of Crystal Falls and west of Alpha.

Notes

The company had a dedicated spur off the Milwaukee Road, south west of the Dunn mine.

Time Line

1913. Forest fires started up with vengeance during the week, the hot and dry weather having fixed the slashing so that they were excellent food for the flames. A big fire started in the Blomgren chopping south of the Carpenter mine driven by a strong south-west wind, it rapidly advanced until it threatened the Carpenter mine. Fire Warden Wilson was appealed to and he went to the scene of action and assisted in fighting the flames. Along towards evening reports from the section between the Dunn and Mastodon became quite alarming. The big Sawyer-Goodman chopping's where the accumulated slash material of the past four years lies, was known to be on fire. A gang of men at work all night fighting back the fire which gained steadily. The course of the fire was from south-west sweeping directly towards the Dunn mine and the adjacent Carpenter property. 

The fire started at the site of the new Mastodon mine where A.D. McRae had a gang of men at work clearing the space where the proposed stripping operations are to be carried on. At the new Mastodon townsite the fire burned up all the stakes which surveyors had prepared and swept over the entire ground to be platted. [DD-1913-0305]

1913.  Sawyer Goodman Co. was the heaviest looser in the big forest fires that aged about here last week and were quenched by the rain of last Saturday. The fire got started in the big slash southwest of the Dunn, a slash which has been accumulating for two or three years. Logs in the rollways burned easily, amounting to 400,000 feet of mixed timber "licked up". Owning to the logs being piled close to the slash and timber, the company could get no insurance and the loss is therefore complete. [DD-1913-0519]