For over a century, the Mississippi River has been a means of conveyance,
floating huge objects to a final destination. Nowadays, it is barges, tied
together and pushed by tugboats. But from the Civil War until early in the
19th century, the main objects on the river were log rafts. Hundreds of
logs - mostly white pine - were lashed together on the shores of the
Chippewa and St. Croix Rivers in northern Wisconsin, then floated down the
Mississippi. Sawmills to process those logs dominated the landscape and the
economies of area communities. Thanks to Frederick Weyerhaeuser and his
brother-in-law F. C. A. Denkmann, Rock Island and the Quad Cities were a
destination for many of those logs.
Today's "real photo" postcard shows what may be the very last log raft
destined for Rock Island's sawmills. Above the paddlewheel of the steamboat
in the foreground we can read "NORTH STAR ROCK ISLAND." This tells us the
name and home of this sternwheeler, which was also known as a "raft boat."
In the background of our photo we see another sternwheeler at the head of
the log raft. That smaller boat is perpendicular to the logs and to the
river's flow. It was designed especially to steer the log raft and was known
as the "bowboat." Floating logs were harder to stop than to start.
In the background we see the Crescent Bridge, which indicates that the
picture was taken looking west from near where the Centennial Bridge is
now - probably the photographer was standing near the top of another
riverboat. We also see men atop the log raft but can't tell what they are
doing. Since the outline of the log raft is very irregular, it may be that
it's in the process of being broken into smaller rafts, which will then be
stored in pens near their sawmill destination until they can be sawn.
Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann maintained their first sawmill just around the bend
downriver at First Street and Fourth Avenue, where a barge terminal is
located today. There had been sawmills in the Quad City area since the
1830s, and that on the end of Fourth Avenue was one of the oldest.
Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann acquired this sawmill, located just north of the
Kahlke boatyards, around 1860. In the very early days, local sawmills cut
hardwood timber from the nearby bluffs.
As the nearby local lumber was cut, Weyerhauser and others looked elsewhere
for a source of logs. They found it in the woods of northwestern Wisconsin.
Huge white pine trees were cut and floated down the rivers to Rock Island
and other destinations. In the very beginning, the logs were simply dumped
into the river up north and fished out at their final destination - but big
logs floating uncontrolled down the river were not conducive to navigation
safety. It didn't take long until the logs were tied together, forming huge
rafts.
The raft depicted on today's postcard is relatively small, as the average
length of a raft was about two blocks long. The largest log rafts were
three blocks long and a block wide. But even a large pack of
lashed-together logs can be a navigational hazard. The problem of
controlling the travel of the rafts was solved when Rock Islander Sam Van
Sant (who later became governor of Minnesota) invented the special purpose
raftboat to push the log rafts. In Rock Island, Weyerhauser and Denkmann
owned their own raftboats, which were built at the Kahlke Brothers boatyard
next door to the sawmill. Thus the pictured North Star was probably built
locally.
Rock Island had two big sawmills, both eventually owned by Weyerhaeuser &
Denkmann. The first was their west end one at Fourth Avenue. F. C. A.
Denkmann and his wife lived nearby at 122 Fourth Avenue. The second
Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann sawmill was located near the foot of 27th Street, in
the "Y" formed by the railroad tracks where some of the tracks curve to go
across the bridge. In later years, the 27th Street mill continued in
operation as Rock Island Sash and Door.
In the late 1800s, when the easily floated trees in Wisconsin or Minnesota
were all cut, it was found to be uneconomical to log inland from the rivers.
With foresight, Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann looked farther afield to the rich
forests of Washington and Oregon. The company eventually moved to the
northwest and where they became the largest timberholders in the United
States, both as a firm and as individuals.
November 18, 1905 at 8 pm marked the end of the sawmill era in Rock Island.
That date and time is variously reported as either the arrival of the last
log raft or the time the west end sawmill turned its saws off for the last
time. So why do we think our postcard might depict that last log raft
destined for Rock Island? Our postcard depicts a Rock Island boat, and
Weyerhauser & Denkmann operated the only Rock Island sawmills. This raft is
downstream of the 27th Street sawmill, probably destined for the west end
sawmill. We can see the Crescent Bridge in the background, which wasn't
built until 1900, so we know the approximate date of the card. Therefore,
we think this postcard might be more significant that first glance
indicates. It depicts the end of the historic sawmill era - an era that
contributed mightily to our city and our community.
Although a few log rafts continued down the river after 1905, they went to
other sawmills in other communities. The summer of 1915 saw the last log
raft, of Minnesota white pine, pushed down river by the Ottumwa Belle.
Memories of sawmill years lingered in Rock Island, even though that last
raft changed our history forever. For years after the mills closed there was
more than just memory - there was smoke. One of the byproducts of sawmills
is sawdust. Lots of sawdust. After decades of sawing wood, the mills were
pretty much surrounded by sawdust, covered by layers of river silt. As a
result, even 20 years after all the local mills closed, there were
underground sawdust fires. In the west end sawmill area, sawdust fires
regularly occurred along the river from Third to Thirteenth Avenues.
The riverfront path provides access to both of our historic sawmill sites.
Take a stroll and look at them. And see the photographic RiverWay markers
near the Kahlke boatyards in the west end and the other near the railroad
bridge at 27th Street. The 27th Street photo shows another log raft, penned
up awaiting sawing in the adjacent sawmill.
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