copper commando – vol. 3, no. 2

12

Upload: montana-tech-library

Post on 15-Mar-2016

219 views

Category:

Documents


1 download

DESCRIPTION

World War II, timber, logging operations, Butte, smelters, Anaconda, mining, war production, Montana, Library car, Al Henderson, shipping, stulls, crane, railroad, meals, cooks, wood

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2
Page 2: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

Coppe~COlDlDandoVOL. III S·EPT. 15, 1944 NO. II

•TH'IS is the second of two issues de-voted to Anaconda's logging operations'in Montana. Montana's for~sts providetimber for the mines and for other opera-tions related to the production of copper.The drains of the Armed Forces and ofother industries have created a seriousmanpowe~ situation in the logging camps,just as they have at fhe mines.. This issueof Copper C.ommando ,is also dedicated to .the Montana loggers who also are doinga big job to help win the war. 't'

•IN our last issue we gave you a detailedphotographic report of the logging opera-tions up to the point where the "cats"haul the logs out to the truck landingsfor unloading aboard trucks. You willrecall that we started with the actualfalling of the trees, saw how the tree isscaled to determine board feet, how thebulldozer builds roads, and how the"cats" or tractors finally move in andskid the logs out to the truck landings.In this issue we are going to follow thelog out to the shipping points .... Thisis a pictorial record of the logging opera-tions in Montana and the editors of yourVictory Labor-Management Committees'newspaper hope that you are enjoyingthis tour with us.

* * *COPPER COMMANDO is the official newspaperof the Victory Labor-Management ProductionCommittees of the Anaconda Copper MiningCompany and its Union Representatives at Butte.Anaconda. Creat Falls and East Helena. Montana.It is issued every two weks .•• COPPER COM-MANDO is headed by a joint committee fromLabor and Management, its policies are shaped bvboth sides and a're dictated by neither ••• COP-PER COMMANDO was established at the rec-ommendation of the War Department with theconcurrence ...of the War Production Board. Itseditors are Bob Newcomb and Marg Sammon!:;its safety editor is John L. Boardman; its chiefphotographer is AI Cusdorf; its staff photographeris Les Bishop ••• Its Editorial Board consists of:Denis McCarthy, CIO; John F. Bird, AFL: EdRenouard. ACM. from Butte; Dan Byrne. CIO:Joe Marick. AFL; C. A. Lemmon. ACM. fromAnaconda: Jack Clark. CIO; Herb Donaldson.AFL, and E. S. Bardwell, ACM, from Creat Falls ••• • COPPER COMMANDO is mailed to the homeof every employee of ACM in the four locations-if you are not receiving your copy, advise COP-PER COMMANDO at 112 Hamilton Street, Butte,or better atill, drop in and tell us. This i. Vol 3,No. 2.

t

I

t

t

Page 3: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

r~HESE logs do some traveling. Theyfirst must be cut down, then sawed intoproper lengths, then hauled out to thehighway, then hoisted on trucks, thentransported to railroad landings, thenhoisted onto special flat cars and finallycarried to the mill.

In the case of stulls for the Buttemines or of converter poles for the smelterat Anaconda Of Great Falls, about fifty'per cent of the shipments are direct-thestulls, 'for example, by-pass the mill andgo di rect to Rocker where they are framedfor mine use.

The six pictures on these two pageswill tell the story of the actual loadingoperation. Let's look at them together:Over on .the opposite page, in the pictureat the top, the crane is lifting one of thelogs which the cat has towed onto thetruck landing. 'Note the two metal armson each side because you'll be interestedin seeing what happens to them later.Actually, when the load is dropped at therailroad landing, the arms on one side arelowered and many of the logs tumble outby themselves. We'll see more of thatlater.

In the second picture Y9u can seeone of the big boys being gently loweredto the pi Ie on top of the truck. The manbehind the truck cab is signaling theoperator of the crane, while the two menat the left, each of whom has a rope inhis hand, help direct the lowering of thelogs. These logs can roll off the side ofthe truck so they are lashed with a heavychain before the truck takes off. In thethird picture the log is settling into place-the operator at the right has his handsbeside him, so everything is working outas it should.

Once the truck is loaded,' the timbercargo is on its way. And in the series ofthree pictures on this .page you can seethe logs as they move along the highway.Oftentimes these trucks carry a fullfreight car of wood.

These are a contractor's trucks; theyare strong and rugged and they get upand down the hills and around the curveswithout difficulty, although they' do notgo very fast.

The trucks finally wind up at therailroad landing where the logs aredumped. The trucks, shown dumpingthe load, can raise the four rear wheelsmechanically onto the chasis, as you willsee later.

The logs, when emptied from thetrucks, roll down an incline into a pile,at which point the crane, which ismounted on the railroad car, moves alongand piles them on flat cars. At this pointthe Company's Shay engines take over.These engines are small and very power-ful locomotives. designed especially forlogging operations. The smoke stackslook very much like the pictures all of ushave seen of engines in the days of theCivil War. They are sturdy little devilsand they can haul a tremendous numberof logs without trouble.

Page 4: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

The arms are released and the truckload of timber,rashes to the hillside. The logs roll downward

where the crane picks them up. The photographercaught this at the very second of fall. The boys

THEY Y ES sir, they start rolling. You remem-ber. We told you.a little while ago aboutthe two metal arms on the side of thetrucks which are released. When thedriver gets the truck into position, a leveris released. the two arms dropped whichhave been holding the logs in place: anddown they go. Sometimes the first dropwill take half or more of the logs off thetruck. At other times. the boys have tomove in with "canthooks" to pry themfree and start them rolling off the truck. A

,STARTROLLING

Two more Jogs to go. This big fellow will be top-pled in a second by the boys with the cant hooks.

Over at the right. the truck has discharged1ts loadand the rear wheels are being raised. Raising the

are glad to see the logs roll like this for each roil-ing log means less work with the canthook.

canthook is an arc-shaped, lever-likemechanism with a sharp hook which isused, in this case, to start .logs rolling. 0'1(Our last issue showed you a picture ofAI Henderson with a canthook.I

Once in a while, if the logs can'tbe budged by canthooks, horses arebrought in. .They are harnessed to the_"timber and the load is loosened in thatway. But, for the most part. the releasingof the side arms does most of the job andthe boys with their canthooks do the rest.

. rear wheels after .the truck has discharged its loadhelps th'e driver speed back for another load.

I

~

Page 5: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

It takes plenty of skill and good eyesight to laythose big timbers down where they ought to go.

THIS particul~r railroad landing isnestled in a valley between two mountainranges. Here the cra~e hoists logs to therailroad flat cars. When six cars areloaded, the Shay engine hauls them outto .the main line, Vernon Crain is t~eengineer. He's been at it for twenty-twoyears and is known as "Baldy." Wethought you might like to know thatBaldy gets addressed simply as Baldy,Woodworth, Montana. He has four-boys

Below is wh3t we think is a mighty good pictu'reof the railroad landing. Five cars 'are already

\

At the left. the boys are setting them down forthe trip to the mill. Full steam uP. the Shay engine

in service, Morgan Jones, the fireman,has been with the Company for thirty-five years; five of them he spent in theButte mines. He has been a fireman atthe logging operation's since 1926.

Four trips a day are made with theloaded cars to the point where the com-plete load is made up for del ivery to themill.

This little Shay engine looks like anold-timer, but it's got plenty of power.

loaded and the crane, toward the extrE!meright ofthe picture, is filling up the last car. When it is

starts rolling up the grade. There are six full earsof precious Montana timber being pulled up.

He has to start six heavy flat cars, loadedwith logs, and work up a running start for.a grade which isn't more than one hun-dred feet away, so it takes a good deal ofskill on the part of the engineer and fire·man. But they are used to it, and theyboth like the logging industry a whole lot,

On this page we show you three dif·ferent views of the railroad landing andthe boys who are on the job there gettingthe logs loaded.

loaded the Shay engine will start moving and thelogs in the foreground will be rolled down.

Page 6: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

TIME· TO EAT.

~ou'd travel a long way to get better food than they serve in a logging camp. Andvou'd travel a long way farther than that to get food as good as the boys are servedat Camp Seven. And your editors ought to know, because they sat down with thelumberjacks and dug in themselves. They were the last ones to leave the table.

SOMEBODY'S going to hit that dinnergong soon. Here the boys are--some ofthem at least--outside the dining hallwhere supper is about ready .

The mountain rises in the back-ground and down the hill at the right isbeautiful Fish Lake. Those are two bunkhouses at the left. For the future, modernportable bunk houses are planned. ac-commodating four to six men each.

The men eat in well-lighted. well-ventilated quarters, at plain tables-but thefood is very good-one old-timer, who hasworked in the Company's logging campsfor over twenty years, and had worked inother camps before that, told us that nofood in any logging camp compared tothis.

The food comes out of.a large, cleankitchen, and do the boys work in terms ofquantity! When you're cooking for ahundred or more men, you're really deal-ing in portions.

Over here at the left, we c(lught oneof the boys who waits on table gettingeverything in readiness-it was only acouple of minutes later that the dinnergong was sounded and the men piled infrom outside.

Martin Lund is cook at Camp Seven-he's been cooking for camps for forty-five years. He tries to serve everything soit is appetizing-he doesn't believe inthrowing food at the men. Martin hastwo sons in the service.

,

Page 7: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

DIG IN!•

A lumberjack and a miner probably have

many things in common with each other,

but one thing they certainly have got in

common is this: They like the best of foodand they like plenty of it. You can't work

in a mine or in a logging camp either

without plenty of the stuff that puts. meat

on your bones. Here at Camp Seven, we

see the boys. sitting down and going toit. Your editors sat down and went to it

themselves and it was mighty good. The

only thing that was wrong about that sup-per for us was that everything was so

good that we ate too much.

• ,

These are just a number of random shotstaken in the mess hall the night youreditors had supper there. The photog-rapher roamed around and, when he asked

•HERE'S the supper menu: Tenderloinsteaks, cabbage and ham hocks, boiledpotatoes and gravy, ;orn, peas, beans,lettuce salad, home-made bread, twokinds of preserves, honey, cookies, cake,cherry and coconut pies, doughnuts, milkand coffee.

There's no central serving-the hugeheaping platters are passed along andeverybody- helps himself. The steakswere good-sized and very tasty, and a manhelps himself.

Just in case you're interested in whata lumberjack gets for breakfast, here is atypical Martin Lund breakfast menu:Oranges or grapefruit, eggs, bacon, ham orsausage, three kinds of dry cereal, one hotcereal, hot cakes, toast, two kinds ofcookies. cup cakes, doughnuts, honey andjam, coffee and milk. You take whatyou want-if you want three kinds of

~ cereal, for example, it is right there foryou.

the boys if it was okay if he took .pictures,they told him to go right ahead as long asit didn.'t interfere with their eating. Wetold them that's the last thing in the world

we'd want to interfere with. So here theyare arranged around the tables enjoyingthe supper ail of them have earned out inthe woods. The menu is given below.

Page 8: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

\

You can tell by the faces of the men in the pi~ture above that they are not wasting any time-theflash of a camera bulb didn't bother these boys any. But they were right there with a grin as wemoved around the room. Your e~itors couldn't tell you much about the quality of the food unless theyate some, so in the picture below, you see Bob Newcomb and Marg Sammons piling in on the steaks.

DEBE IT IS•

There isn't much conversation. at supper.When you've been out in the open airsince early in the morning and have putin a full day'9 work, you're usually moreinterested i., eating than in talking. Thetalk-fests come after the meal is over-once the boys sit down at the loadedtables, all they want 'to do is to dig in andthat's what they do. They certainly haveearned the right, for they are giving UncleSam the best they've got. They all knowthat lumber is on Uncle Sam's critical listand that if the war is to be won UncleSam must be supplied in a hurry with thematerials he has listed as critical. So eachday they do their best to help him out.

-.....( .•

-When your plate gets empty at a logging camp, just reach out and fill it up. There is plenty of everything and the emptied dishes are soon refilled.

Supper doesn't take long. As we havetold you, the boys square away their eve-ning meal and quickly break up. Theycluster in groups outside for a smoke anda talk; some go down to the lake shore,which is close enough to throw a stone in,and pull out fish that are there in greatnumbers. Most want to curl up in. theirbunks in the bunk houses and stretch outand take it easy. The men listen to radioprograms, some of them write lettershome, many read magazines and books••• The most popular type of reading isdetective stories-there are many detec-tive and mystery story magazines in thebunk houses. The magazines are sub-scribed for by the Company, and they tellus that there are few detective magazinesthat the boys don't get. They say thatreading a good detective story at the endof the day is real relaxation for them.

Page 9: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

loe Kingham, thirty-seven years with the Company, is the cook at Headquarters.

That's Carl Peterson, second cook at Camp Seven,turning over the tenderloin steaks for supper. Carlhas been in the cooking game for longer than hecan remember; nothing pleases him more than to

see the boys really dig in and put it away. In thesecond picture, we find Joe Kingham, chief cookat camp Headquarters near Woodworth, standingwith Rudolph Moen-that's Rudy, who i. second

cook, at the left. The cooks will tell you it takesplenty of meat to satisfy a lumberjack'. heartyappetite. At the right is Harry Kirchner, a cook',helper who got a little hungry before supper.

IMartin Lund, Camp Seyen chef.loob over the day's turke~. and sti ... the soups.

Page 10: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

HALT AT HEADQUARTERS

\

'I1HE Headquarters of the Anacondalogging operations are located, as we havetold you earlier, outside of a small com-munity called-Woodworth. Woodworth isa matter actually of only a few houses,and the Headquarters camp is the biggestsingle part of it. It is more in the opencountry-there are no forest lands imme-.liately around it and here the logging pro-grams are mapped. Under the able direc-tion of Don MacKenzie-you met him inthe pictures in our last issue-the log-ging operations are kept busy at the bigjob of providing timber for war essentialindustries and commercial outlets. Thatis Don at the left, seated at his desk atHeadquarters. He is a strong-muscledScotsman with a friendly manner. Heknows practically all of his men by their'first names and the working day usuallyfinds him busy at the camps rather thanat his desk. The others are members ofthe staff at Headquarters.

Before the manpower shortage cre-ated a tough situation at Woodworth, thecamp was well supplied with loggers, butthe men who remain are carrying on a bigjob as well as they can, bearing in mindthat mines must be kept in operation ifthe boys who are dealing the blowsagainst the Axis are going to end the warsoon.

So sit down and get acquainted withthese folks-we are sure you will be gladto know them

That i. C. W. McEwen, chief clerk in charge of supplies, above. That'. BillDuquette and Margaret Mannix below. They all work at Headquarters.

Willard Hartley and Fred Schiesser talk it over above; below. D. L. Miller,clerk. makes a sale in this store which is located right in the office building.

I

Page 11: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

/

ONE of the main attractions at Head:"quarters is the Library Car. It so happensthat we had never .seen anything like itbefore, and. we hope you haven't either.because we'd 'Iike to tell you about it.

Not only is the car itself most inter-esting, but there is a great deal too in thefine old man who runs it-AI Henderson.In our last issue, we mentioned AI Hen-derson briefly as one of logging's real vet-erans. Now we want you to meet him atclose hand and get acquainted with him,and we want to teil you about the movinglibrary Car which he has built up and inwhich he takes great pride.

They call it a .car because that'swhat it is. It is a car built especially forthis purpose. In the old days, it used toroll on its own wheels with the c-amp-whenever the site of logging operationschanges, the camp normally moves with it.It has been some time since this LibraryCar was moved, but if Headquarters ofnecessity shift to some more convenientspot, you can be sure that the Library Caralong with AI Henderson will move withit.

There are over 2,000 good books inthe Library Car. They run the range fromhistory to fiction, and many popular bookscan be founci' there. They are AI's prideand joy-he knows not only w.hat is inevery book but he can usually pick anybook out without having to refer to hiscatalogue.

He started logging in Michigan in1879 and commenced work for MarcusDaly in 1894 in logging camps. He hasbeen in logging' camps ever since. He isnow eighty-two, and when he felt thetime had come when he couldn't swingan axe or handle a canthook quite-as nim-..

Here is AI Henderson, beloved manager of the Library Car. He has read every one of the 2,000 booksin the car. At the right is the reading table where the boys at Headquarters camp assemble to readbooks and write leHers home. The Library Car is a good place to go for it's cozy and comfortable.

(

BOOK-LOVER

Come along to the library Car and meetAI Henderson, one of the woods' most

lovable old timers, who loves books.

Bill Selleck and Jack Mucky drop into the Library Car to catch up on the latest literature. They bothenjoy books, and their favorite newspaper is Copper Commando. Neither of them, they tell us, evermisses a copy. Bill and Jack have been logging for the Anaconda Company for a good many years.

bly as he could when he was younger, theCompany put him in charge of the LibraryCar. He can sit and spin many a yarnabout the old days, and he loves to do it;not only that, it is a pleasure to listen tohim. The car itself is warm and cozy. AIhas his office and living quarters at oneend and the well-stocked shelves at theother. The car furnishes stationery with apicture of the Car Library to the men sothat they may have writing paper; theboys frequently drop in to drop a letter totheir families or friends. The car not onlyhas daily papers-it has news magazinesas well. AI reports that the favorite news-paper of them all is Copper Commando.Naturally we are pleased to hear it and feltcertain that it was true when we droppedinto the car and caught Bill Selleck, whohas been with the Company since 1920,and Jack Mucky, who signed up back in1906, reading your Labor-Managementnewspaper.

You'd like to spend a lot of time withAI Henderson once you've met him. Hesays he hasn't had a chance to get mar-ried; he's just been too busy. He has doneeverything there is to do in a loggingcamp. He's worked in the Blackfoot andBitter Root areas.

Even at eighty-two, he doesn't liketo take it easy-he has taken very fewvacations. Even now, when taking care of'the Library Car is his only job, he looksafter a team of horses, hauls wood, helpsrepair the roads and does a lot of extrathings. As he puts it, he just has to keepbusy.

.I

If the Headquarters camp moves,you can count on it that AI will movewith it. And he will take along with himthe books he knows and loves, and wher-ever he goes he will bring cheer and pleas-ure to loggers. wherever they may be.

Page 12: Copper Commando – vol. 3, no. 2

Even WarsNeed Wood ...

-,

YES, even wars need wood. As a matter of fact, wars need everything. They need the blood and· sweat.anil tears of men. They need the things that strong men can build with their hands, and smart men can.-build with their minds.

-Today, this war needs ,,"ood too. It takes 300 feet of lumber to box and crate a member of the

Armed Forces initial supplies to go overseas and it takes fifty feet of lumber a month from then on to

keep him supplied. according to a War Manpower Commission report. This war needs the "heavy timbers.that copper miners c~nnot do without. And, since the war cannot do without copper and copper workers,

/

wood has a job to do. Manpower shortages have put the logging industry in a bad way, yet the timberindustry has no choice but to continue to deliver the wood.

We miners and smeltermen and craftsmen. associated with the production of copper, have no choicebut to stay where we are. We are doing a war job, and it is one of the. most essential. Uncle Sam has

asked us to stay with owr jobs, so that the war can be ended more quickly. But if, in your family, or...among your friends, there is a man who is not now engaged in essential war production, perhaps he would

like to join the ranks of war workers in Montana logging camps so that he, like they, might do his share.

When this war is won, and the score is tallied, all of us will want to know that we have done whatwe could do.