Mississippi River Logging: Iowa Time Machine August 9, 1915

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On August 9, 1915, the last load of logs slid past Dubuque on the Mississippi River, signaling an end to Iowa’s timber industry. Although Iowa was not known for trees, logging operations thrived in the late 1800s to provide the raw materials for settlement.

Iowa’s river valleys, full of hardwood bottomland forests when Americans arrived in the 1800s, stood ready for logging as pioneers sharpened their axes. With the products of the extensive pine forests of Minnesota and Wisconsin transported on the Mississippi, early Iowa entrepreneurs set up steam-powered sawmills along the river from Lansing to Keokuk.

When the spring thaw allowed, huge rafts of logs floated down the Mississippi River, some nearly as large as a football field. Small firms grew, including the Standard Lumber Company of Dubuque, as the forests of the Great North rapidly yielded logs. In February of 1876, the Dubuque Herald reported 100 million logs banked at the eastern Iowa city.

As railroads came online in Iowa, the cars helped carry logs to settlements farther west. One train, leaving Dubuque in June of 1876, carried 77 cars fully loaded with lumber out of the city on the Illinois Central. Like all booms, lumber eventually went bust in Iowa. By the early 1900s, the decimation of the northern forests had led to a decline in industry. In August of 1915, the steamer ‘Ottumwa’ pulled the last raft of logs south to signal the end of an early Iowa industry. #Iowa #OTD #History #Logging #Timber