Michigan logging wheels

Michigan logging wheels are a type of skidder that was introduced in the nineteenth century United States logging industry as a state-of-the-art technology for transporting lumber and timber over rough terrain. They proved most valuable in the winter months as they could extend the logging season since they were not dependent upon good seasonal weather conditions. It enabled a set of domestic labor animals (i.e. horses, mules, oxen) to be able to transport many heavy logs of various sizes over a long distance of uneven wet ground.

Michigan logging wheels
Single logging wheel
ClassificationVehicle
Industrytimber
Applicationhauling
Fuel sourcelabor animal
Poweredyes
Self-propelledno
Wheels2
Axles1
InventorSilas C. Overpack
Invented1875
ExamplesGallery

Silas C. Overpack invented the Michigan logging wheels in 1875. They were all made individually upon order request at first, but mass produced later when the concept was accepted nationwide. The were painted red and came in various sizes, generally 10 feet tall plus or minus six inch increments ranging from nine to eleven feet in overall height. The cost was considered expensive and was dependent upon the diameter size requested by the customer. Some logging companies bought dozens at a time because of the time they could save in their labor costs to get the same work done in the same time period otherwise.

History and use

Michigan logging wheels were most commonly referred to as "high wheels."[1] They were also known as big wheels, [2] logging wheels, dragging wheels, lumber harvesting wheels, log bummer carts, and nibs.[3][4] They were a type of nineteenth century horse-drawn log hauling vehicle using a method of dragging or skidding.[5] They extended the timber extraction season for the logging industry in the North Woods of Michigan, by removing the need for frozen icy ground to traverse. The logging wheels were a set of oversized wooden wagon wheels that were specially designed to carry felled trees up to 100 feet (30.48 m) long, several at a time that otherwise could only be pulled out of the woods one at a time.[6]

Silas C. Overpack first built Michigan logging wheels in 1875, at the request of a farmer who had found they were useful for logging over softer terrain.[7] At the time Michigan was the leading producer in the United States of felled trees that was used to manufacture lumber.[8][9] He always painted his high wheels red.[10] Overpack's logging wheels could haul logs without the need for icy ground. They did not sink into mud in the wet terrain of the northern woods where ordinary wagon wheels would get mired in the spring thaw. The wheels enabled a team of horses or labor animals to pull several logs at once.[11]

Overpack was a wagon manufacturer in Manistee, Michigan, in 1874 that specialized making wooden wheels when he was asked to build a pair of unusually large 8 feet (2.44 m) wagon wheels to a local farmer. This same farmer later returned asking Overpack to construct an even larger pair of wheels. When Overpack asked the farmer the purpose of such large wheels, he answered that he was attaching horses to them to drag logs of felled trees out of his muddy woods.[5] From then on Overpack's big wheels were part of the Michigan logging history. Many northern states used them, and at least 65 different lumber companies in Michigan alone had them.[7] In the nineteenth century, Michigan's rough and wet forest terrain restricted logging to the winter. Loggers used frozen ground to skid the logs from the woods to the railheads of railways or to river banks for further transport. In the spring they would slide the logs from the banking grounds into the rivers for the log drive to the sawmills. Overpack's production of Michigan logging wheels at his Manistee wagon business made logging possible year round.[12]

When Overpack exhibited his Michigan logging wheels at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, they were of much interest and caught on in the national timber industry for advancing commercial logging.[13] They received a medal and a first premium award at this World's Fair.[14] Overpack contracted with the Redding Iron Works Company as a vendor of his specialized wheels to help overcome shipping issues and aid in supplying his product to the western United States. The company's location on the West Coast made them ideal for the western United States timber industry. It later became a builder of Overpack's Michigan logging wheels.[5][15] Overpack began manufacturing on a large scale and ultimately made thousands of logging wheels, selling them worldwide and shipping them via railroad to other states and Canada.[16] The U.S. Army Forestry Department even took several to France during World War I. The logging wheels were discontinued by 1932.[7]

Typical lumbering as done by George A. Mitchell when he developed out Cadillac, Michigan.

Sizes

Overpack sold three sizes of big wheels: 9 feet (2.74 m), 9 feet 6 inches (2.90 m), and 10 feet (3.05 m) in diameter; they cost $100 per diameter foot, a quite considerable investment for the time. Unlike a wagon which carries a load above its axle, these huge wheels carried logs suspended by chains beneath the axle, creating a stabilizing, low center of gravity.[16] The wheels could carry logs from 12 to 100 feet (3.7 to 30.5 m) long and enough logs to total 1,000 to 2,000 board feet (2.4 to 4.7 m3) of lumber in a single load.[17] The axles were made of hard maple, and the 16-foot (4.88 m) tongues were ironwood. The wheels were clad with outer iron rims to protect them from stumps, fallen trees, and rocks, while interior iron rings reinforced the wooden spokes. Horses, oxen, or mules pulled them in the nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century tractors were used for the power source to pull them.[18]

Locations containing logging wheels
Michigan logging wheels examples
  • Michigan logging
    c. 1922
  • Hauling logs
    c. 1900
  • Missaukee County, Michigan, c. 1915
  • Cadillac Big Wheels,
    c. 1908
  • Logging wheels at
    Knotts Berry Farm
  • Manistee Michigan museum display
  • Manistee Museum
    front lawn
  • Logging wheel display Flagstaff railway station.
  • Logging wheels located east of Death Valley
  • Logging wheels at
    White Pine Village
  • Slip tongue log skidder Institute of Texan Cultures
  • Logging wheels demonstration
  • Hauling log on axial
  • Hub of logging wheel
  • Big Wheels, King, WI
  • Big Wheels, Rinelander, WI
  • Big Wheels, Camp 5, Laona, WI
  • Logs were suspended
    from wheel axle
  • Genuine Overpack logging wheels were always painted red
  • Eleven foot logging wheels
    compared to 6 foot person

See also

References
  1. Dickmann 2016.
  2. Rosentreter 2014, p. 166.
  3. Blandford 1976, pp. 153-154.
  4. "Logging Big Wheels". Mendocino Coast Model Railroad & Historical Society. 2020. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  5. ""Wheels That Won The West® Featured Vehicle Out of the Woods". www.wheelsthatwonthewest.com.
  6. Cabot 2005, p. 21.
  7. "Moving wood in Michigan by Arvind Badrinarayanan".
  8. Lumbering in Michigan Archived 2001-12-15 at the Wayback Machine
  9. "Background reading - Lumbering in Michigan by Maria Quinlan".
  10. "Log Booms for loading the redwood lumber". www.mendorailhistory.org.
  11. Powers, Perry Francis, A History of Northern Michigan and Its People, 1912, p. 707, Lewis Publishing Company, An original at University of Michigan.
  12. "Timeline of Wood".
  13. "Timber West Journal Sept Oct 2003". www.forestnet.com.
  14. Cabot, James L., Images of America - Ludington 1830 - 1930, 2005, ISBN 0-7385-3951-1, P. 21
  15. "Big Wheels Resort". Archived from the original on 2008-07-05.
  16. "Kids' education on logging industry" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-10-29.
  17. Wright, C. S. (31 May 2017). "Traverse City: In Vintage Postcards". Arcadia Publishing – via Google Books.
  18. Dickmann, Donald, The Forests of Michigan, pp 132-133, University of Michigan Press (2003), ISBN 0-472-06816-4
  19. "Hartwick Pines Logging Museum".

Sources
  • Dickmann, Donald I. (2016). Forests of Michigan. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472036530.
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