Sierra Nevada Logging MuseumOperated by the non-profit Friends of the Logging Museum,Telephone 209-795-6782 Mail P.O. Box 3619, Arnold, CA 95223www.sierraloggingmusuem.org Spring/Summer 2014Message from our President, Ginny Kafka

Dear members and friends:

Another year? It’s hard to figure out where it has gone so quickly, and how to get newsletter editor, John, to get going on the spring/summer edition for this year before it has to be an autumn edition. It’s been a quiet year with both the indoor exhibits and the outdoor ones, as well, pretty much in place and we are not being pushed to get anything in particular done. But as I write this, a new exhibit is being built to demonstrate more of how the equipment was used in the woods. Plus, until after the Jamboree, we have an operating Mercury Disston chainsaw in the museum

along with a photo of Harry Bosse and Russell Leach using just such a saw to fall a huge tree, I

mean really huge! Come see these exhibits and revisit all the great exhibits that were already in place for your education and enjoyment. 19th Annual Logging

JamboreeOur Logging Jamboree will be held on August 30th this year, the beginning of Labor Day weekend. There will be competition for both amateurs and professionals, lots of great food, exhibits, special events, tours of the museum, special talks and demos about our historic Shay locomotive, demonstrations, raffles, and more. Instruction for amateurs who want to compete in our events will start at 9:00 am,

and then they will go on to actual competition. The pros will begin at about 12 noon. The Moose will have their great barbecued hamburger and/or chicken sandwiches. Soda water, water, local beer, and wonderful local wines will be sold. We will have cookies and we think cotton candy for sale as well. There will be games for kids and over the years these have been very popular.

2013 Jamboree

DONALD “REX” PAYTON Rex Payton of Angels Camp, passed away on 1/27/14. He was born on 11/04/41 to Leah Crumly Payton and Chester Payton in Watseka, Illinois. He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Jac (Jaci) Elaine McCutchan Payton, a FLM volunteer who worked with Rex on one of the main exhibits in the logging museum. Rex attended elementary school and high school in Sheldon, Illinois. He attended the University of Illinois and graduated in 1963 with a B.S. degree in Forestry. On 1/27/63 he married his high school sweetheart Jaci. They moved to Calaveras County in July 1963 where Rex began his career with the U.S. Forest Service. Their son Benjamin was born in 1965 and daughter Brenda in 1969. His love for his kids and grandkids knew no bounds. Rex loved his work with the Forest Service and the U.S.F.S. friendships that he formed were precious to him. Rex enjoyed traveling (especially to Hawaii), golf, babysitting the preschoolers from the MOPS Program, and volunteering at the Friends of the Logging Museum in White Pines, CA. Those of us who worked with Rex admired and respected him. He is missed.

Docent/Friend,  Betty Fitzgerald died November 7th, 2013Editor’s note: This is taken in whole from the story in thepinetree.net. I’m sure that a family member wrote it, and won’t mind having our visitors read about this remarkable woman. I was her partner many times as we did our docent duty at the museum. She was a truly exceptional womanBetty Wohlert Fitzgerald was born and raised in Iselin, New Jersey. Her parents were immigrants from England and Germany. She graduated from nursing school in Plainsfield, New Jersey and began her nursing career in New Jersey and New York. She married Donald Fitzgerald in 1957. Wary of the increasing New Jersey congestion, she moved to Angels Camp in 1964 with her husband and three young children; Grace, Clare, and Chuck. The fourth child, Julie, was born in California. For many years, Betty worked as a Registered Nurse for Dr. Smith and Dr. Styskel in Murphys. She served as the resident nurse to the Amador Ave. neighborhood throughout her years living there. She and Donald were very active in their children’s extra curricular activities during their formidable years, never missing a softball game, cheerleading event, spelling bee, wrestling tournament, track meet, basketball game, or football game. She dedicated much of her spare time volunteering for community organizations, especially American Field Service. Betty was the AFS Chapter President for many years. She was a “mom” to many foreign students, maintaining relationships with some of the students over the years…In 1991 Betty was named “Woman of the Year” in Calaveras County. In her retirement years, Betty lived for her next trip. She traveled extensively taking cruises and visiting family members. Despite the distance, she never missed a grandchild’s special event. She most enjoyed family vacations with her children and grandchildren to faraway destinations. All the while, Betty continued her role as an active community member until her death. She served as a docent at the Sierra Nevada Logging Museum for a number of years. She was well known for her enthusiastic greeting to visitors.

Comment on the feeing of community in the logging industry: Bill Wakefield, cousin of John Hofstetter, the newsletter editor and Webmaster for the museum, had several good jobs after the Blagen Mill closed in 1962. He told me often that the mill people and Doc Linebaugh’s workers were the finest people he ever worked with. He said that they were trustworthy, watched out for each other, and took good care of their families.

Collective Bargaining in the SC Linebaugh EraLars Sanders, long time White Pines and Avery resident and timber faller for some 50 years was also, at least at times, the union representative for the local loggers. On our website you can find several descriptions of having to face Doc Linebaugh in labor negotiations. Lars’s son, Forest, sent us an envelope of written agreements between Doc and the Union. The newsletter editor and author of this piece, John Hofstetter, sat on both sides of the table in salary negotiations for the teachers in Calaveras Unified School District, and perhaps this causes him to appreciate the documents more than some of our readers. I also loved Lars as did most anyone who knew him, but I bet this aspect of Lars’s logging life was one he liked the least.

Job Bumping: Doc signed an agreement that said that he would not replace a regularly employed employee with a supervisor. If the job needed to be cut back or eliminated, cost savings were not to be made by filling the job with a supervisor. Preferential Hiring: Doc agreed to hire American citizens or aliens holding their first papers of Naturalization, over other potential employees. All employees had to join the Union within 15 days. Working Days and Hours: Employees could work no more than 8 hours per day and no more than 5 days (had to be Monday through Friday) except in exceptional circumstances, in which case the employee would receive double compensation. Later contracts spelled out when there would be time and a half in addition to double time. An employee who is going to be dismissed, cut back on time, or fired, has to be notified by the night before the event at the latest. If this notice is not given, the employee will be paid for two hours on the day he is let go. Sympathetic Strikes: The Union could only go out on a sympathy strike if the union they were sympathizing with was the Central California Council of Lumber Handlers and/or the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. The Union need not pass through any picket line of the American Federation of Labor. Seniority: Service in the Armed Forces counted toward seniority and veterans

would be given re-employment upon leaving the military.Vacation: 1400 hours of work gave 1 week of vacation, 1120 hours of work gave 4 days, 840 hours of work gave 3 days. Vacation pay for those separated from employment was paid on the payday next preceding Dec. 25th 1945, the year this contract was for. Health and Welfare: The Company, SC Linebaugh, agreed to pay $19.50 per month into the Lumber Industry Health and Welfare Fund.Hearing Aids: A later contract specifies that the company would replace hearing aids, in addition to the dentures and eyeglasses already covered, if such devices were damaged or lost at work. Forest Sanders also included several contract agreements between Blagen Lumber Company and the Union. One dated 1942 was signed by Lawrence Wilsey, the much respected and admired Resident Manager at the time. The tone of that contract is impressive in that it emphasizes the need for cooperation and amiability between company management and the workers. Mr. Wilsey seemed to exemplify that better than almost anyone and his employees reciprocated. Note: The Museum has a video demonstrating falling, limbing, and bucking. As part of that, there is a three minute piece of film shot by FLM member Ted Shannon, showing Lars, who is in his 80’s, and his Black Lab, Tuffy falling a tree, and Tuffy helping by bringing tools to Lars. Lars shows how the double bitted axe served as a carpenter’s square and as a plumb bob, both functions helping ensure where the tree will fall. The tree Lars is falling is a few feet from a tree he had fallen 50 years earlier. Lars was a major contributor to the museum in its early days and the museum owes him a great deal. Come see the video.

Our Shay and its Ancestry In at least one way, the model of the El Portal incline we have in our museum

could be misleading to the viewer, and maybe to the docents also. They were logging Sugar Pine just south of Yosemite, but our model emphasizes the major role played by the incline and the machinery there. Getting the logs to the main incline was a major endeavor. The Shay locomotives pulling the log trains from the forest to the top of the incline had to negotiate tough terrain. There were grades that challenged the Shay’s ability to climb grades up to 14%. There was another incline in route to the logging sites and although not as steep as the main incline, which dropped down to the Merced River, it was still very steep. We have a 20 minute video from which we excerpted the DVD running at the exhibit, and it describes this incline, sometimes causing people to think the data we’re giving them about the incline in the model is incorrect. Different incline, same operation. There were also a number of trestles. The Shays worked hard and their thanks for that was a trip to the scrapyard after the incline operation was shut down. Origin of the Shay This is mostly borrowed with permission from the Whistle Punk, the newsletter of the Timber Heritage Association in Eureka, CA.

Ephraim Shay, inventor of the unique gear-drive locomotive bearing his name, was born in Ohio in 1839. He taught school to earn enough money to go to medical school. He served in the army during the Civil War and then returned to Ohio. In 1864 he began to practice medicine and moved to Michigan and took up logging. Logs were usually transported using horses. Being an innovative person he decided to build a tramway to move his logs to the mill. After several problems arose, he decided a light locomotive would be more efficient than the horses. With the help of a local repair shop he built a small locomotive. Shay found the locomotive was hard on his wooden rails, while the log cars were not. In 1873, he reasoned that a locomotive would provide a smooth flow of power to its wheels, and deliver much better traction, if the strong

impulses from its steam cylinders were transmitted through reduction gears getting power to each wheel. He spent his spare time during the next 5 years refining and rebuilding his little locomotive. He began working with a machinery company, which became Lima Machine Works in 1877. In 1880 they built the first Shay Locomotive. It was built on a flatcar with a small vertical boiler; two vertical cylinders were fastened on the side of the boiler. Rods from the cylinders turned a line shaft fitted with flexible couplings connected to gears on the wheel axles. The Lima Company became a major locomotive producer and Shay continued to invent and improve the geared locomotive. Soon the boiler became the standard horizontal locomotive type boiler with 3 engines attached.

In this photo of our locomotive, note the 3 vertical engines with the connecting rods coming down to a crankshaft that in turn drives a driveline going to each wheel on the locomotive and the tender. Our Shay was built in 1929 and had many improvements over earlier models, but it was still Ephraim Shay’s wonderfully sound design that let it do its job better than any other design of locomotive. See our web site to learn how it survived the furnaces by hiding out under a huge pile of tires.

Comments and suggestions in regard to either the newsletter or the website can be directed to John H. at snlm@goldrush.com Please be aware that he doesn’t take criticism well,

and so complaining about his abuses of the language is likely to accomplish little. The reader should ignore his linguistic idiosyncrasies, as the Friends of the Logging Museum ignores as many of his irrelevancies as they can. On the other hand, he is the tech giant among the getting-elderly folks who keep the museum operating, so they have a problem with getting him out of the way. He protects his position by not sharing the passwords to the machines, thereby ensuring that he continues to be called on. Most of you will recognize that this is written in jest as was last years spot here. Must have been poor jest as I (notice the change from 3rd person to 1st person) didn’t hear from anyone telling me it was bad, meaning of course it had little impact on any of our readers. Oh well.

Friends of the Logging MuseumSierra Nevada Logging MuseumPost Office Box 3619Arnold, CA 95223

2014 Logging JamboreeDon’t forget that our Logging Jamboree will be Saturday, August 30th, this year, the first day of our Labor Day holiday.”)19th Annual, can you believe it?Memberships, Donations, and Gifts Probably all of you know this museum exists because of the bequests of a few people who put the museum in their wills, or made large bequests before leaving us. Let us encourage you to consider including the museum in your estate planning.Our day-to-day expense coverage depends on the memberships that you hold in our non-profit organization, plus donations from individuals or service groups. Our memberships run from July 1st to June 30th. So a renewal form is included. We had a fantastic response in regard to memberships last year, and hope to do as well this year. We can only stay open with the help of you folks who join us, or donate to our efforts. Thank You!