Archives West Finding Aid
Table of Contents
Wood & Iverson Co. Collection, 1905-1943
Overview of the Collection
- Creator
- Wood and Iverson Lumber Company
- Title
- Wood & Iverson Co. Collection
- Dates
- 1905-1943 (inclusive)19051943
- Quantity
- 1 box, ( .3 linear feet)
- Collection Number
- 1991.82
- Summary
- This collection consists of photographs and negatives taken of the Wood & Iverson logging operations in Roosevelt and Hobart, Washington.
- Repository
-
Museum of History & Industry, Sophie Frye Bass Library
P.O. Box 80816
Seattle, WA
98108
Telephone: 2063241126 x102
library@mohai.org - Access Restrictions
-
The collection is open to the public by appointment.
- Languages
- English.
- Sponsor
- Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Historical NoteReturn to Top
The Wood & Iverson Co. began in 1896 as a shingle mill operation at Roosevelt, Washington, five miles east of Snohomish on French Creek. By 1909, William Washington Wood and Ivar C. Iverson (who knew one another from working together in previous logging operations) had saved enough money to buy timber acreage at Hobart, Washington, near Issaquah. In 1915 they opened a large sawmill, complete with a blacksmith shop, a locomotive house, brick dry kilns, a log pond and a wooden flume more than half a mile long. Wood & Iverson Co. employed roughly 200 men and turned out a variety of lumber supplies, including dimension lumber, siding, molding, pipe staves, lath and shingles, and even airplane stock.
The small community of Hobart became a bona fide “company town,” offering a general store, 35 company-built houses, a three-story hotel, and a post office. Because of Hobart’s distance from any nearby banks, the company also issued its own currency -- aluminum “hickeys” that came in denominations up to $20 and which could be used not only at the general store but were also honored in Renton, Maple Valley, Issaquah and even the Seattle Hotel. When William Wood died in 1932, his son Russell took over operations. The firm was dissolved in 1945 and little remains of the old sawmill site, which is near present day S.R. 18.
Content DescriptionReturn to Top
The collection consists of black-and-white photographs and negatives of Wood & Iverson Co. operations. Subjects include spar tree logging, steam donkeys, gas yarders, pile drivers, logging camps, exterior shots of the Wood & Iverson Co. sawmill, group shots of work crews with old-growth Cedar, and a Bucyrus Erie D-2 Diesel shovel grading for railroad. The collection also includes a panoramic view of the Wood & Iverson mill at Hobart by Darius Kinsey, and a sketch of the old Peacock farm near Hobart by W.H. Piggott.
Use of the CollectionReturn to Top
Restrictions on Use
The Museum of History & Industry is the owner of the materials in the Sophie Frye Bass Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. Written permission must be obtained from MOHAI before any reproduction use. The museum does not necessarily hold copyright to all of the materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from the copyright owners.
Preferred Citation
Wood & Iverson Co. Collection, Museum of History & Industry, Seattle
Administrative InformationReturn to Top
Location of Collection
2b.2.10Location of Collection
VII.b.2 (panorama)Acquisition Information
Donated by Gertrude Wood Stack in 1991.
Related Materials
Photographs of the Wood & Iverson Lumber Company from the Maple Valley Historical Society are available online at University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections.
Bibliography
Wood & Iverson: Loggers of Tiger Mountain, by Ken Schmelzer. Oso Publishing Company. Arlington, Wash. 2001.
One Hundred Years on the Cedar, by Morda C. Slauson. 1967. (Wood & Iverson history on p. 20-22)
Detailed Description of the CollectionReturn to Top
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.
| Description | Dates |
|---|---|
| 1991.82.1: Crew at Wood & Iverson Shingle Mill, including Billy Iverson | |
| 1991.82.2: Early steam and horse logging.
W.W. Wood standing near center of log in foreground.
|
1905 |
| 1991.82.3: Single drum steam donkey using ground lead at Roosevelt, Wash. | |
| 1991.82.4: Hauling shingles on cross planked road to railroad siding near Monroe, Wash. | |
| 1991.82.5-8: Bucyrus Erie D-2 diesel shovel grading for Wood & Iverson logging railroad | 1929 |
| 1991.82.9: Railroad grade with spar tree in background | |
| 1991.82.10: Crew, including Otto Iverson, loading logs on railroad skeleton cars | 1940 |
| 1991.82.11: Crew with gas-powered yarding donkey | 1941 |
| 1991.82.12: Skagit Log Co.’s log dump at Day Creek Camp | 1943 |
| 1991.82.13: Government snag boat of Skagit River | 1943 |
| 1991.82.14: Skagit Log Co.’s log rafting works at Day Creek Camp | 1942 |
| 1991.82.15: Salvaging logs on the Skagit River for the Skagit Log Co. | 1942 |
| 1991.82.16: Northern Pacific Railroad log cars loaded with logs | |
| 1991.82.17: Raising a fir spar tree at Skagit Log Co.’s Day Creek Camp | 1941 |
| 1991.82.18: Gas yarder on flatcar | |
| 1991.82.19: Gas yarder and spar tree | |
| 1991.82.20: Gas yarder operating | |
| 1991.82.21: Steam locomotive and skeleton cars in winter | |
| 1991.82.22: Pile driver and railroad trestle construction | |
| 1991.82.23: Building being moved by truck during Hobart clean-up | 1941 |
| 1991.82.24: Wood & Iverson, Inc., postcard depicting the early days of the high lead (spar tree) logging at Hobart | 1917 |
| 1991.82.25: Gas yarder, spar trees and heel boom for loading logs | |
| 1991.82.26: Spar tree being raised. | |
| 1991.82.27: Spar tree in final position | |
| 1991.82.28: Steam loading and yarding donkey, spar tree and crew | |
| 1991.82.29: Steam donkey, spar tree and railroad track | |
| 1991.82.30: Atlas diesel yarder on top of Tiger Mountain | |
| 1991.82.31: Skeleton railroad cars loaded with large logs | |
| 1991.82.32: Steam locomotive fighting bunkhouse fire | |
| 1991.82.33: Unfinished railroad trestle | |
| 1991.82.34: Steam jammer loading logs on railroad cars | |
| 1991.82.35: Cedar logs on tideflats (log dump) | |
| 1991.82.36: Cedar logs on tideflats | |
| 1991.82.37: The old Peacock farm near Hobart, Wash. Sketch by W.H. Piggott | |
| 1991.82.38-.41: Wood & Iverson mill crew, Hobart, Wash. | |
| 1991.82.42: Wood & Iverson Climax locomotive #2 and train | |
| 1991.82.43: Panoramic view of Wood & Iverson mill at Hobart.
Darius Kinsey
(photographer)
|
|
| 1991.82.44: Reduced copy of .43 | |
| 1991.82.45: Spar tree | |
| 1991.82.46-.47: Negative – old Wood & Iverson camp on spur east of the Campbell ranch | |
| 1991.82.48: Negative -- New road on branch of Issaquah Creek | |
| 1991.82.49: Negative -- Bunk house | |
| 1991.82.50: Negative – Man by building | circa 1920 |
| 1991.82.51: Negative -- Hot water boiler for both house and laundry, Wood & Iverson, Inc. logging camp above Campbell ranch | |
| 1991.82.52: Negative -- Warren Iverson at Wood Iverson Inc. logging camp above Campbell ranch | |
| 1991.82.53: Negative – Man by building | |
| 1991.82.54: Negative – Man by building | |
| 1991.82.55: Spar tree, two steam donkeys and railroad track | |
| 1991.82.56: Russ Wood | |
| 1991.82.57: Russ Wood and Pete Peterson |
Names and SubjectsReturn to Top
Subject Terms
- Logging—Washington (State)—Tiger Mountain Region--History
- Lumber Camps—Washington (State)
Personal Names
- Iverson, Iver C., 1872-1945
- Kinsey, Darius, 1869-1945
- Wood, William Washington, 1868-1932
Geographical Names
- Washington (State), Western
Form or Genre Terms
- Nitrate negatives
- Photographic prints
Finding aid prepared by Sheri Boggs
2006
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
