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Mountain Memories
Pages 32 - 33
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Steep hills weren't the only obstacles to be crossed by the Log Hauler, for I remember well the predicament that old locomotive got itself into a few years later out on County W east as it was making its way across a swampy area about a quarter mile east of where Bill and Marilyn Seis live today.
A logging road had been built along a stream that flows into Hines Creek to skirt the edge of a spring fed pond. One day the Log Hauler/ while bringing its load into town, sank through the roadway and into the mire underneath, invariably having no way of escape on its own power.
I recall everybody and his brother were out to see this mired steam machine, with many of us wondering if it would continue to mire even further! That old Log Hauler could still well be there today if it were not for some quick thinking individuals who anchored it to an elm tree nearby, and after two days of attempting to free the locomotive from its doom, another maninade anchor built within reach finally helped to pull it from the mire.
The logging road coming into town from the east ran parallel to the street from where I lived as a boy, and the Log Hauler was kept just down aways from our house in a garage built just on the west side of the town creek during the off season. The Log Hauler received a well-deserved rest there in the summer and wouldn't be seen until winter's snow again returned to cover the roadways on which it traveled throughout the countryside.
The engineer of the Log Hauler always sounded the whistle of the steam locomotive as he rounded the final curve on County W east and headed onto the straightaway for the landing by the depot. The sound of that whistle was then a part of our simple everyday routine, but like that song by Peter, Paul, and Mary goes/ "You could hear that whistle blow a hundred miles"!
This photo captures the early logging operations of the Statler crew working in the western section of the Town of Armstrong.' Otha is pictured with his team of horses while the rest of the crew 'tops off this load with the use of the near by crane.
Much of the harvest from these sections were once taken to landings along the Wolf River to the west when waterways were the only way of transporting the logs. With the coming of the railroad and the spurs built to reach off the main line, logging resumed with the cutting of the hardwoods.
These were booming years for the entire Town/ men found work in the lumbering camps, businesses sprung up in the towns, and settlers continued arriving to these northern woodlands.
During the summer months these men found employment working for the Town of Armstrong where Stephen Statler was elected as supervisor for the road crew that built and maintained the roads in District No. 3 in the Boulder Lake area where the Statler settlement originated in 1877. This photo is courtesy of Steve Elbe, his great grandfather being Stephen Statler.