First Ever Saw Blade in Wallowa County on Public Display
By Garrett Christensen on Wednesday, September 7th, 2022 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
JOSEPH – (Information from the Wallowa County Museum) The Timber Industry is deeply intertwined in Eastern Oregon History. From the earliest pioneer mills to the timber boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, logging has left a cultural mark. The Wallowa County Museum is celebrating this storied past with a recently opened exhibit containing the first ever sawblade brought to Wallowa County.
Curator Jude Graham provided an overview of how the original Smith Mountain mill came to be, sighting from a preserved article, “The first sawmill in Wallowa Valley was set up in November 1878 by F.V. Cochran, W. Stanley Hayes and Amos Gibbs with four yokes of oxen, two yoke to their wagons, who moved it in over Smith Mountain. Hayes said, in coming down the mountain to the Wallowa River from Cricket Flat, they tied large trees to the hind end of their wagons to help hold them back from running onto the Oxen. After they arrived at the Wallowa River, they spent several days getting everything to the top of Smith Mountain. When they arrived at Hurricane Creek, all the settlers came and helped set the mill up. Those who helped, were George S. Craig, Robert Fishman, W.S. Hayes, Henry Miller, Alex Cochran, Thomas Fisher, and Granville Guthrie. Henry Miller was a mill right and supervised the work. Craig, Dishman and Hayes, rolled the first logs to the saw and Miller loaded the first lumber direct from the saw onto his wagon and hauled it to his Homestead at the North side of Alder Slope in late 1878. His house was the first built of lumber in Wallowa Valley. Craig said he and Dishman, a brother-in-law of his, hauled the first logs from the timber with Oxen.”
The old blade is fifty-four inches in diameter and only sports thirteen teeth. The blade and the rest of the logging exhibit can be viewed at the Wallowa County Museum, 110 South Main Street, Joseph, Wednesday through Monday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
