Sawmill...King, Quick & King

Sawmill-King, Quick & King

If you stood on the East Main Street bridge and looked upriver in the 1870s to 1890s, you would have seen two large islands filling the center of the river from Avery Street to North Street. A bustling logging industry was actively using the islands, the river and its east bank. Logs were floated from upstream and collected in Lowell. Dozens of workers moved floating logs to the sawmill chute to be cut into lumber. The lumber was then moved back to the islands to be stacked and dried. Two pedestrian bridges near Avery Street crossed the east channel to Island No. 1 and there were other bridges over the log run to Island No. 2. Besides lumbering, other industries on the islands included ice houses, a panel-making mill, shingle mill and fruit evaporator plant.

The first lumberyard here was Dodge’s. In 1868, it was noted that Dodge’s lumberyard was one block north of Main Street on the east bank joining the Central School (built 1862). Dodge’s sawmill operated with waterpower.

In 1871, the firm Quick & Powlison along with Captain Byron Smith built a steam-powered sawmill on the bank just south of Dodge’s. It was built for the King, Quick, and King lumber business. They later purchased Dodge’s lumberyard also. The thriving business of Francis King, Reuben Quick and Frank T. King lasted from 1871 until the last of the white pine was logged off upriver and floated to Lowell in 1892.

Notes taken from the Lowell Journal and the Lowell Ledger help us understand the logging business:

June 3, 1874: The rear of the logging drive in Flat River will pass through Lowell this week.
Dec. 1874: It is estimated that 50,000,000 board feet of pine logs will be put into Flat River this winter.
1879: King, Quick & King built a shingle mill on the nearest island.  They turned out 7,000 to 8,000 wooden shake shingles per day. This involved splitting the lumber along the grain.
1883: King, Quick & King are building an elevated track preparatory to piling lumber on the island.
1884: First log of the season passed through the chute on April 12; Rear of log drive occurred on May 21; saw & shingle mills began work on May 15th.
1886: Rear of log drive passed through on June 18, 1886.

In 1890, the King, Quick, King entrepreneurs, knowing that the lumbering era was nearing its end, purchased the Superior Mills (flour) and established a new company, the King Milling Company with Charles McCarty and several others. By 1893, all of the white pine was gone so King, Quick & King advertised: “Logs Wanted-Elm, Ash, Oak and Maple logs wanted, delivered at our sawmill at Lowell, or will buy standing timber.”  Soon after, the lumber business closed.

In 1900, The King, Quick, King sawmill office building, which had been located on the corner of Avery and Lafayette Streets (Lafayette Street is today called the Riverwalk), was moved to its new Main Street location in front of the King Milling Company and was again used as an office.

The red shingle mill was torn down in 1901. The machinery of the old King, Quick & King lumber mill was sold and shipped north in 1902.

Other industries on the islands included the King, Quick and King ice houses. They harvested the ice in chunks from the Flat River when the ice was thick in February or March. It was packed in sawdust inside two ice houses until sold to customers for use in their iceboxes.

M. C. Barber & Co. erected an apple evaporator plant near the shingle mill in 1884. He installed one Williams Dryer. In 1887 according to the Lowell Ledger, Miss Minnie Klumpp sliced 963 bushels of apples in one week, working 10 hours per day, and in one day, sliced 181 bushels. The Evaporator closed for the season in November-- Their season’s output was 35,000 pounds of apples plus 35,000 pounds of cores, parings and chopped stock. Apples were dried as a way of storing them before refrigerators were common.

In 1885, it was noted that “B. G. Wilson will soon put up on King’s Island two new buildings, 20’x200’ each, to become Lowell Manufacturing Company’s Panel Factory.”  The company had 1 drag saw and 5 panel making machines. They also had a tramway to move the finished material to stacks outside.

Images:

View from the west bank of the Flat River looking toward the current riverwalk. Logs can be seen floating in the river and stacks of lumber on the island.

The Sanborn Map of 1885 shows King Quick & King’s Sawmill on the mainland east of the Flat River and their Lumber Yard on the large Island. Their Shingle Mill and the M. C. Barber Fruit Evaporator were located on the smaller island. Logs were brought to the sawmill through the Log Run canal between the two islands. The trestle tramway returned the lumber from the mill to the island.

Logs were pulled up the chute by chain to enter the sawmill building. Inside, they were cut into lumber with a large circular saw powered by a steam engine. Notice the raised tramway on the far-left side. The freshly sawn lumber was moved back to the island to be stacked and dried. If you look closely, you can see a dozen barrels of water on top of the roof ridgeline to be used in case of fire.

A shingle made at the King, Quick & King Shingle Mill.

The Sanborn map of 1892 includes 4 lumber stacks east of the sawmill with lumber sheds and the office building to the south as well as the lumberyard on the Island.
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Logs were kept inside the boom until they were cut into lumber at the Saw Mill. Stacks of finished lumber are seen beyond the logs. M. Hiler photo.