Postcards from Home

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Log Raft on the Mississippi
Rock Island

by Diane Oestreich

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.