Sierra Nevada Logging Museum

Displays, dioramas, and artifacts are what we see in museums, but there are other items, like information, that are harder to get at. In the physical world of the museum, showing stuff is easy, while presenting information can be hard. To present information better, the Logging Museum is moving its historical files to a place that’s easy to get to — the website. By digitizing information hidden in files and memories, it becomes accessible, complementing the artifacts that fill the museum building.

Suddenly, a Logging Museum visitor can see not just a working model of a lumber mill, but the historical and biographical materials that explain why a particular living person at a particular lumber company built a particular type of mill at a particular geographic location at a particular time. Physical and digital combine to give a bigger picture than either can provide alone. Think of these web pages as our digital museum.

Please enjoy the new website — it’ll be here anytime you look. To enjoy the Logging Museum in person, visit us Thursday through Sunday, 12:00 to 4:00, April through late Fall. We’re in Calaveras County, just off California Highway 4 in the town of White Pines (near Arnold), 4000 feet up in the Sierra’s beautiful tall timber.

Winter on White Pines Lake at the Logging Museum
Photo by Dick James

djames@mlode.com

Patrick Karnahan — Featured Artist for 2008 OSH Calendar

Patrick Karnahan, acclaimed railroad artist and manager of our Shay restoration project, was selected as the featured artist for the 2008 Orchard Supply Hardware Train Calendar. Thirteen of Patrick’s paintings grace the OSH calendar, with the Logging Museum’s Yosemite Lumber Company Shay No. 4 on the cover. The calendars were distributed in December to OSH store customers throughout California. We’re sorry to report that the museum does not have copies of the calendar for distribution or sale.

Shay Prints for Sale!

In cooperation with Patrick, the logging museum is selling collector-quality prints of two of his paintings that are in the OSH calendar. All proceeds from these sales go to support the restoration of Yosemite Lumber Co. Shay No.4. The Company Store has all the details.

Tuolumne County Logging History Project

Our new project on Tuolumne County logging history is underway. We have been visiting the Tuolumne County Historical Society, talking with logging families, digging on the web, and visiting mill sites to put together a survey of county logging activities. Our first articles are a very brief summary of the period from 1849 to 1882, and the story of the Big Creek Lumber Company, a family-owned mill at Smith Station, just off Highway 120 out of Groveland. When we get back to the project in the spring, we’ll be moving into the era of Thomas Bullock and Count Andre Poniatowski, the men who created Tuolumne’s railroads and big lumber companies.

Calaveras County (and other) Mills

If you haven’t already seen the articles, our focus last year was on the many mills that operated in and around Calaveras County. The articles on McKays’ Clipper Mill, the Thornburg Mill, the Toyon Mill, and the Pino Grande cable, as well as multiple histories tied to the move of the Blagen mill to White Pines in 1938/39, were our first articles produced for the digital museum.

–John Hofstetter & Mark Johnson

Museum Activities

Winter Schedule — We’re Open, Just Call Ahead, Please

During the winter, the Logging Museum is open by appointment from December through March. We do this for two reasons — safety on snowy roads for our visitors and docents, and to minimize the cost of heating the museum when visitors are few. We look forward to showing you the museum (winter is beautiful at 4000 feet), but please call ahead (209-795-1226) so we can turn up the thermostat.

Snagfallers Hoe-down, June 14th

A Snagfallers Hoe-down was an annual community get-together celebrating the year’s logging season. It was traditionally held outdoors at the mill with good food, friends, and lots of music for dancing. Our 2008 Snagfallers Hoe-down will be on June 14th at the museum. Dance music will lure dancers to the floor. Michael Cox, the barbecue master of Avery, will provide his delicious tri-tip meals. We encourage you to get out your western or old-fashioned dress for the party.

Ticket prices are $20 for adults and 12.50 for ages 12 and under. Remember that the money we take in goes to keep the museum operating.

Schedule:

5:00  Social hour and no host bar      6:00 Dinner   7:30 to 10:30 Dancing

(”What in the world is a snagfaller?”, you ask. A snag is deadwood, maybe a dead, leaning tree, or maybe a dead limb lodged high in the branches of a healthy tree. Cutting a tree may dislodge deadwood, sending it whistling down onto the heads of the loggers below, injuring, or even killing, them. A logging crew’s snagfaller was responsible for finding and clearing the snags before the timberfallers went to work. It was hard and dangerous work. A good snagfaller was a highly celebrated member of the logging community, and a great excuse for a get-together.)

Logging Jamboree, Labor Day Weekend (Joni Morris concert included)

Labor Day Weekend brings the 13th Annual Logging Jamboree at the Museum. Join us for two days of festivities and fun, watch working loggers tossing axes, wrestling two-man saws, and ripping through logs with roaring chainsaws. A very special attraction for this year will be having a concert by Joni Morris included in the very minimal price of admission to the Jamboree. Tours of the museum and our 1920 Shay steam locomotive are on tap as well as new events that may involve you in the jamboree’s logging competition. The 2007 Jamboree set new records for attendance and fun; join us as we deliver more in 2008!

Other Activities

59th Tuolumne Lumber Jubilee, Tuolumne City, June 19-23rd

At the home of the former West Side Lumber Company, crowned by the professional logging show on Sunday. Hot saws, ax throwing, bull-of-the-woods competition, tug-of-wars, and more. Learn more at the 59th Jubilee webpage.

Finally, we have more of our outstanding cookbooks for sale. These cookbooks contain a lot of recipes from old families in Calaveras County, plus a lot of recipes from other great cooks. To find out more or to buy one, click here.