This week we are clearing and grading what will be one day be the main promenade to a viewing deck and canoe takeout. During the job our own Mayor Drenning stopped in and noticed a clean cut and notched spruce log. The shot above shows the log with a view from Riverwalk's riverfront. Clearly very old red spruce, protected for a century underwater before being washed up here, this log is well on its way to becoming mulch. In the old BW photo you can see the roof line of the "old bank building" at left, with the structures, rails and stacks of the Babcock Boom & Lumber Co along the north banks of the Blackwater. The photographer was across the water from today's Riverwalk's site and the view is angled upstream toward what is today's Davis Riverfront Park. Seeing this old log and various chunks of century-old foundation in the mix, we felt like the boom days were just a little closer in history. Other huge spruce logs with similar notching rest nearby in the water. I am guessing that these logs are from the log bridge that spanned the Blackwater near this location. They are from the lumber days, no doubt. Phil, our excavator, told me that in the 'old days' (I'll guess the 50's) they would just burn the shores of the Blackwater along here, to keep back the brush that they feared would bring a fire from across the river (today the Blackwater Falls State Park) I daresay that most fires in these moist woods probably came and continue to come from man's hand, but ok, I can imagine these banks burned off and grassed, before the decades of decline had made themselves felt. Imagine the 1920's and 30's here...a time when the mills were silent, gone or being disassembled. A thousand or more citizens watched the economic engine wind down. One property after another would be neglected, abandoned, and town pride would find a smaller bastion, walk a narrower path, and subsist on a sparser income from nearby mining and the slowing momentum of a lumber boom's legac
y.
This week we are clearing and grading what will be one day be the main promenade to a viewing deck and canoe takeout. During the job our own Mayor Drenning stopped in and noticed a clean cut and notched spruce log. The shot above shows the log with a view from Riverwalk's riverfront. Clearly very old red spruce, protected for a century underwater before being washed up here, this log is well on its way to becoming mulch. In the old BW photo you can see the roof line of the "old bank building" at left, with the structures, rails and stacks of the Babcock Boom & Lumber Co along the north banks of the Blackwater. The photographer was across the water from today's Riverwalk's site and the view is angled upstream toward what is today's Davis Riverfront Park. Seeing this old log and various chunks of century-old foundation in the mix, we felt like the boom days were just a little closer in history. Other huge spruce logs with similar notching rest nearby in the water. I am guessing that these logs are from the log bridge that spanned the Blackwater near this location. They are from the lumber days, no doubt. Phil, our excavator, told me that in the 'old days' (I'll guess the 50's) they would just burn the shores of the Blackwater along here, to keep back the brush that they feared would bring a fire from across the river (today the Blackwater Falls State Park) I daresay that most fires in these moist woods probably came and continue to come from man's hand, but ok, I can imagine these banks burned off and grassed, before the decades of decline had made themselves felt. Imagine the 1920's and 30's here...a time when the mills were silent, gone or being disassembled. A thousand or more citizens watched the economic engine wind down. One property after another would be neglected, abandoned, and town pride would find a smaller bastion, walk a narrower path, and subsist on a sparser income from nearby mining and the slowing momentum of a lumber boom's legac
y.
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2 comments:
Can the logs be salvaged and used for part of the Riverwalk or are they pretty much useless?
I think that there is good wood at the heart of these logs, and some would be nice artistic pieces to incorporate in common structures....or there might be a scenario where a few of these logs with soft exteriors could be milled to board and used for some element of Riverwalk's amentities. WV DNR would likely OK such a project. Great idea!
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