Description: Pictured is the jammer at the Fort Seward Mill in 1946 or 1947. The jammer is the A-frame above the log pile. It enabled a logger to move a log to the top of the pile.
This image was contributed by Kenny Tanksley, who worked as a tallyman and yard boss at the mill when he was in his early twenties. During that time Erling Erickson was the plant superintendent. Other men Tanksley remembers there are Harold Fraser, Jack G. Mikkola, and Ted Ostrom, who also worked as a circus performer.
"I recall one winter that we had 7 million board feet in the log deck, enough to last the winter. It was called a cold deck. There were no lay offs that year (1947)," Tanksley said.
He also remembers a man who drowned in the tee-pee wood burner, and a man who cut his arm off at the trim saw. In the latter incident, an older man removed his hat and placed it over his heart and said a prayer for the man who lost his arm.
"Fort Seward will always remain in my fondest memories as a young man starting out in the lumber business. Those old lumbermen taught me a lot. I continued working around Humbolt County until the big earth quake in Eureka, and then moved inland. I became a lumber inspector with the Western Wood Products Association and retired in 1994," Tanksley said.
