‘Timber Wars’ reach Mill City 

Born and Raised in Oregon. Lived with logging families and went to school with their kids. Worked as a High Line Choker-setter for two summers in the late 70's and owned a pair of WESCO Jobmaster Corks until they fell off my feet ( I buried them in Yosemite ). The fight between the Environmentalists and the Timber Industry was something I remember first hand, as it was just beginning to brew in the mid and late 70's. An old logger and I ( like someone from "Sometimes A Great Notion" ) were eating lunch one afternoon looking down on the Columbia River as a Japanese Freighter was heading west towards Astoria. He told me that those were Raw Logs heading towards Japan, China or Russia, and he told me that that was going to be the death of the Northwest Logging industry as we he knew it. I asked why? From his perspective the Northwest Timber Industry was slowly but surely changing from the family run organizations, and were being acquired by large organizations that required good quarterly returns, and whose model was moving towards what he called "the plantation" logging. He told me a history of how individual Timber Companies had made deals NOT for finished milled planned lumber ( which would have brought in better incomes and kept jobs ) but instead for raw trees. When times were good they cut everything they could get their hands on and even made deals for US Forest Service and BLM Land trees. He said that Japan was beginning to make deals with Brazil and Malaysia for cheaper trees ( their wages were significantly less than US ), and with the meteoric urban population growth the Pacific Northwest cities ( growing at three times the rate of the non-urban ), created a populations of young college educated high waged professionals who supported the Environmental Movement. He talked about Federal and State Taxes and how they effected the logging industry, and how that was ALL going to change. The Environmentalists saw ALL loggers as the enemy, and the loggers saw them and their "Spotted Owl" as the enemy, in the end the owl was merely a tool used against the Timber Industry in the court system. The real enemy was something larger and more complex.

I’m 4 th generation born n Stayton. I moved up between Lyons and Mill City in 1973 buying 3 acres on the river. I sawed logs at Stout Creek Lumber, logged all over the canyon, and shopped at Charlie Stewart’s. My folks lived beside A&W in the trailer park. Granddad was the Stayton blacksmith. His old shop is currently being restored on 2nd street. Lots of history here for me.

Wish this local history was taught in Oregon public schools.

That $175 work boot is now $500. But them WESCO boots are the best boot around and made here in the PNW. I’ve bought two pair and had one pair rebuilt over the years.

I had to look to see when this was made. 33 years ago. My business is in Aberdeen WA, another timber town. So much looks the same. trucks, people, clothes, houses, beards and hair. That store reminds me of the store I grew up in in Ellenwood GA. My Dad sold all that same stuff and helped people who needed credit. Nobody went hungry

Thanks a bunch for uploading this, please upload more from your archives. It's a great way to get acquainted with oregon's history and how we got to where we are today. Really feel for both sides after watching this. Compromise is hard, really hard and I hope we can all find it in ourselves to compromise. The separation, vilification and radicalism dehumanizes the debate and doesn't lead to a solution.

Love this documentary, somethin just beautiful about looking in on town folks daily lives to the backdrop of an extremely important and deviding topic

Let's not forget Oregon's history. With so many transplants living here now, many don't have a clue what it was truly like living through those times , watching the impact that the decline of logging had on whole communities and families and the battles that took place over forests, jobs and a way of life.

I grew up in mill city and visit my grandparents grave in gates as often as I can. This is the mill city I remember. Charlie Stewart looks exactly how I remember him. He was our landlord for years. My grandfather was the very first truck driver for Frank lumber company. This documentary took me back.

This was very interesting to watch. I lived in eastern Oregon and worked in the timber industry at the time this was made. The fact is we, meaning the US uses wood and wood products every day. Not everyone can afford to go to college and a college degree doesn’t guarantee a job. All of these people work hard, support families, and do the best they can. Trees grow back. Developing and using best practices has to be carried out.

She said she was dating her moms divorced co-worker when she was 16? That prison time in 2023 💀

Let's all recognize the awesome Cat Power hat Brent is wearing in the opeing burthday scene. This tornado loves you dude.

Hometown store...much better than Walmart!😊😊😊😊

Very nice . Would love to see a similar video done in 2024

It would be very interesting to show the ownership details of the forest. If I remember correctly, most of the forests in WA state are privately owned and controlled.

You know both sides have their feet on the ground here, I hope this town maintained

Excellent documentary!

This way of life has changed so much thanks to corporate greed

what are all the houses made of.

Using the lumber in the usa is one thing. Good thing. Problem is, the old growth logs are being sold to overseas buyers

So cool if this was still there such a cool store

I'd definitely agree that much more information has come to light about forestry practices and conservation since the time this was filmed. We now know much more about rehabilitation of land. That has been degraded by industrial timber practices. Still vast losses of ecology is persistent.

I love how he was saying it is expensive for a work outfit…. 300$ might buy you good pair boots and pants these days….

I lived in mill city during this time. Gates primary school

Wow I love that scrap irons hat outstanding

George Atiyeh may have died in the recent fire in Mill City...sad end.

Those were dark times in the PNW. My hometown all but died. The small town vibe of ma and pa shops gave way to discount stores on the outskirts of town. As a result mainstreet became a series of vacant shop fronts suffering from neglect, vandalism, theft, and covered in graffiti. What was once a beautiful main street lined with trees and flower planters and baskets with picturesque shop fronts became an illegal dumping ground for demolition debris and household waste. With the loss of so many jobs and subsequent depression gave way to a rise in drug abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, and crime. As tax revenue dried up, thanks to the real estate devaluation, business closures, and abandoned properties, public infrastructure, public services, schools, and funding for desperately needed projects, repairs, and improvements all took a hit. The real hit to the town was the closure of two of the three mills. For every one timber related job loss 3.5 non-timber jobs were lost. An entire generation grew up on benefits while their once proud parents struggle with substance abuse and/or legal problems. Idle hands and minds struggle to break the poverty cycle. Teen parents often remain impoverished; raising their children on benefits as well. Over 30 years later this small town is still struggling to find a new identity. A few industries tried to makea go of it in the late 90s and early 00s. However the 2008 financial collapse wiped out nearly 40% of the jobs in town as these new industries closed their businesses overnight. With the collapse of the housing market what remained of the timber industry took a huge hit once again. Methamphetamines arrived in an instant to numb those affected, along with their struggling children. Leaders began to focus on tourism as they always do in dire times. However its difficult to attract visitors to a depressed town with equally depressed residents. Watching millions of tree burning across Canada all year has been absolutely tragic. Not only did we lose all of that timber, but the wildlife habit is gone and those trees released all of the carbon they stored. We will always need timber. There is no greener building product like timber: no equal period. The issue is we are not planting enough to replace what is being lost and harvested. Clear cutting is destroying the soil while allowing invasive flora to smother biodiversity. Without some canopy to keep the forest floor shaded, the soil dries up, killing off vital vegetation. Soil dying leads to nutrient loss, tree stress - disease and death, and the soils inability to absorb, store, and slowly release moisture. A forest absorbs moisture for vegetation to use, evaporative cooling, and cloud formation and precipitation. When one link in a micro climate is broken the entre process is lost. Stressed trees breed and spread disease and invasive insects. We can grow many of the crops we rely on in multi story vertical farms. By moving many staple crops into vertical farms reforestation of farmland can help to sequester carbon and provide timber for harvest in 20 to 40 years. More trees allows the ground to store more moisture and cool the immediate environment via controlled evaporation and produces its own rainfall. The requirements of biodiversity in a forest is not a myth or tree hugger tactic. Its fact..... We must harvest and replant with biodiversity in mind. We can't simply plant rows of crop timber and kill off everything else. Doing so requires constant intervention by man to ensure the trees grown. Intervention often comes in the form of costly irrigation, errosion control, artificial soil 'enhancing', and chemicals. My point is regardless of the devastating impacts logging bans impose of those relying on timber industry jobs, the environment is screaming at us to change our ways. We can sustainably harvest timber. We can cost effectively reforest with minimal intervention if we allow biodiversity to flourish naturally. In doing so new and properly harvested forests will better retain moisture to prevent runaway fires due to dried out forest floor covered with dead and drying vegetation. No, we can't produce wet moss covered rain forests everywhere. But we can allow nature to rebuild its own defenses by reversing global warming through reforestation, carbon capture, and reducing carbon emissions. Yes..... it will take decades if not a century or more. That is if we take drastic action now.

36:27 wish the cars looked like that still

2020 know what in need TP

2020 almost everything goes through ( Longview WA.) and get shipped out to China and other countries.? Love you all in mill City.

I I I like seeing a Humboldt undercut.

Overlogging and then over planting, and mismanaging were 100% responsible for the destructivness of the beachie creek and lionshead fires. We gotta find a balance, and leave some big trees that resist wildfires for thousands of years. That's our best defense, and keeps the loggers happy too.

Cool times hard but good comunty right there

Sad to destroy communities by taking away a renewable resource.

Now we know why we have forest fires

Don’t trees grow back ? Because I know there back in there logging

The only constant in life is change.

The whole spotted owl thing was a lie. I know this from my work. This reminds me of a different life. It's so hard to watch this. Sweet home was like this except for now there's a little work. The mills are all closed except one. I miss those days

My Grandfathers cousin brought Helicopter Logging to the PNW..

Won over a million and the man still goes to work let that be a lesson for this generation

Thankful for the Hodad’s who were essential in reforesting the clear cuts made by the greedy.

Loggers don't want to cut down trees "for their survival" - they want to do it for their PROFIT, this is about GREED - not need.

I guarantee you that the protesters live in wooden houses. There is quite a bit of fumes from that truck.

I’m so sorry for you if this hasn’t Been Roght up befor e

This the 80s

Wish we opened up more ground to pay for schools! It’s pathetic now days the day we the great people of Oregon have lost our roots to outsiders who have 0 ties to Oregon! I’m worried for my 2 boys!

The very reason I moved out of Oregon.

if they stop logging in your state they will log in another.

Over 1.6 million winning the lottery wasted on Disney World and the Bahamas and the hope for a Condo on the Fairway of a golf course. Not like any logger I have ever known. A sad representation of this China Disney Walmart Fantasyland that is America and it's morals and values.

In the early 80s I used to go help my uncle log around that area.. woods were clean from people cutting tops for firewood.. was out there 4 years ago and the woods are a fire hazard from the idiots running it now. Do the environmental people understand once it burns its gone.. a resourceful resource gone . Hmmmm

Change is difficult, especially when you aren't prepared for it or just don't want to. Changes have been a large portion of my life. I'm sure that the people who lived on the land prior to this logging community weren't happy to see their lives uprooted and their homes destroyed. And perhaps the people before them. And so on.

I still have a very nice 064 around here somewhere. It always amazes me how people don’t think trees grow back.? Trees are no different than corn, beans, or tobacco, they grow everywhere and everyday. And now these idiot treehuggers want to end farming.?? I think this clearly explains how intelligent they are or aren’t. The stupidity that governs the logging in Oregon has done enough damage to the towns, families, and people to last 5 lifetimes. Surely this industry can find some stability for everyone involved because the stupidity of putting families out of work over an owl, fish, or terrorist group must stop. The logging industry has been in Oregon for over 200 years and there’s still lots of trees so it’s pretty obvious to keep logging.

What you have here is American and anti-American. Responsible people and irresponsible people. Anarchy and order. We still use lumber. But these people were stripped of their livelihoods. At what cost?

It is sad that folks lively hood, are at the hands of the politicians. Folks depend on these jobs. And you have moron's who thinks what's best for you. I went through timber shut downs. Now it has all burned up.

We are logger and we have to do the job has done it s out future.

Back when people knew their genders, women were women and men were men. Miss those days

Im kinda guessing there ain't many barber shops in town

Clear cutting not logging but wanton destruction. Thinning and clearing out a little at a time would have kept the forest healthy and loggers busy till the end of days. Millions upon millions of dead and dying trees from bark beatles and mismanagement not my kind of legacy to leave to the children. Greed not good. Mud and debris flows into the rivers and creeks, hardly a salmon left to run the rivers. Poor kids.

Use saran wrap instad of toilet paper. Save the trees.

There is only one reason to tell a baby that the food is not hot and safe to eat, is if YOU PREVIOUSLY GAVE A BABY HOT FRICKIN FOOD!!!

now look at the forests. theyre just burning to the ground in more ferocius and devestating fires. log it, graze it, or watch it burn!

two many do gooders.

Threats against a man and his family for wanting to conserve and leave a little for the future of his children. Low life's. Feel bad about the logger(s) who died in a dangerous occupation. Not an extremist who would write hateful letters to their families. Plenty of hate and blame to go around.

If you want good jobs, stay in school not hoping for the best while having 5 kids. It’s sad but it’s true

The forest is fine, it will grow back

Arrest them all. They're all a detriment to society.

All I have to say is OandC Land. Oregon is logging and we know how to replant as much as is harvested.

I grew up in the water at the beach and was a freshman in highschool when this was filmed. I love the earth. Seeing the activist is funny, because they are the same misguided stoners that are active today. Young people who have done nothing, they add no value to the community but they sure are good at complaining about everything. They are not incorrect in their endeavor to protect but so misguided in their effort. "I work at a tofu factory"

Unfortunately most of this area burned in 2020. Stop harvesting trees and the burn or die anyway.

The logger is the true environmentalist

Eviro made it possible our lovely Santiam Canyon get burned to a crisp. I am sickened that the eniros destroyed the lively hoods of so many of my friends and exsteneded family.

"Environmentalists" = no skin in the game. When they are done protesting they go back to school or work and plan their next protest. In my 51 years I've seen forests in Oregon burn, tree's fall down and rot, massive windfall (Van Duzer Corridor on highway 22). And plenty of replanted forests grow up again. Forests are long term Crops. The Spotted Owl, well it turns out was run out by another species of Owl (Barred Owl - Invasive). State spent $100 million dollars on the spotted Owl study. Think what $100 million would have done for these families and their children. They could have built "industry" around one of our biggest resources. I grew up in Salem and we often drove through Mill City, East of Salem about 25 miles. Be great to follow-up with the families in this video and see what happened to them. The Mills have all been scrapped, save a few small buildings, towns here are a shell of what they were, Mehama, Mill City, Lyons of when I was a kid in the 1980's. My step-dad earned his living selling Mill Equipment. I feel for these families and businesses that had the "rug pulled out from under them" by people calling themselves Scientists and Environmentalists. I guess if your a scientist or environmentalist it is more important to be "right" then to "Love your neighbor" and find a way to responsibly help them make a living and raise a family? But I'm not smart enough to piece this all together. Now we have Scientists and Foresters in the woods with shotguns trying to remove a Barred Owl Species to save the spotted Owl. At the same time the Scientists push a theory of "Survival of the fittest". Only the scientists are "fit" I guess. You harvest the trees and replant, or they burn or rot, or fall down in place. No better resource than Wood if you manage it right. My 2 cents.

My Grandfather was still alive when this fiasco started, and was extremely angered that they considered a common barn owl was respecied and called a spotted owl and used as the basis to end logging in numerous communities. Even though my Grandfather was a lifelong staunch democrat and environmentalist, he also knew the importance of logging, that not only did it help keep the forests clean by taking out brush and other undergrowth that fueled forest fires, they also replanted the areas cleared with young saplings. The ecoterrorists that started ths whole mess in the late 80's and early 90's also helped create the massive underbrush overgrowth that makes fighting wildfires worse.

I like how the conservationists complains but he doesn’t realize he’s the minority and he’s trying to ruin the lives of the majority and wonders why the people treat them bad they care more for trees then peoples lives but that’s a democrat for you things are more important then people.

Transplants listen. And take heed to the tales of loggers fortune and loss. Timber is Oregon and will forever be Oregon. We tried to log it all, but couldn't.

Its simple. The government shouldn't own any land outside DC. The private property owners should be free to do with their land what they wish.

Let's not forget that logging destroys our home and living habitat and most of all is not sustainable.

Looking back, it seems that the loggers and mill workers did a better job protecting the forests than the activists and government ever did. I remember when I could live off the land. Now it is all burned. Back in the day we used to have volunteer firefighters and most of them were loggers and mill workers who knew their way around the woods here. The locals would get in early and nip it in the bud before asking for a permit. Now with all the gates and decommissioned roads half the forest will burn before they can even get close to the fires. Because the fire will double in size while they are rebuilding the access roads. Now days the government will torch multiple times what would have burned so they could maintain a safe distance and get more funding from the taxpayers. Locals had a more personal stake and were willing to take the risk going in to stop it at a couple acres. Closing the smoke jumper base near here and not maintaining the fire access roads was the worst blunder of a life time. Soon after we lost our early response capabilities the really big fires started happening. But sure, lets blame it on global warming. That is a good excuse for letting it burn. Now, even the environmentalists are saying burn baby burn.

They killed all those jobs because of the spotted owl. Then you find out the barred owl kills them 1000x more than logging ever did. I guess we should have fought harder...

At 24:50 minutes, the liberal conservationist outlines exactly what conservatives have to deal with today. Kinda crazy how things ebb and flow.

I'm sitting here smelling the environmentalists legacy right now, the charred remains of a large decadent unhealthy forest.

Now they are shooting Protected owls in favor of other protected owls. That’s your government in action.

I own a timber company from ohio. If the loggers where aloud to cut cut more maybe you wouldnt watch hundreds of thousand acres burn your house down. Thats your falt. Smoky the bear lives up to his name we had smoke for weeks . What is your house and most everything in it. Dont know about you but i like my hard wood floors and the family table. What the hell you going to sit on the ground to eat. Support your logging companies

If you're not employed by the lumber industry, you're getting screwed by the lumber industry!!! I'm sick of 2x4s being 1 1/2 x 3 1/2. Not to mention ALL lumber seems to be mis represented, with regards to actual dimensions. Also, tired you people whining simply because you all never had a "plan B". Maybe we should call the "waaaaaaambulance"

& it seems we all lost as now thare all out thare jobs & were all out the oxygen we need & less than 2% of Oregon forests are old groath, we could have stopped cutting w/ 20% of old growth remaining & all it would have cost us is about a decade of logging jobs wouldn't have changed anything in the long run, land of the big cut & short term profit at any cost, that's our well earned legecy