Guide to the Wood & Iverson Co. Collection
1905-1943

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Table of Contents
  Overview of the Collection
   
  Historical Note
   
  Content Description
   
Use of the Collection
   
Administrative Information
   
Detailed Description of the Collection

  Subjects

Overview of the Collection

Creator: Wood and Iverson Lumber Company
Title: Wood & Iverson Co. Collection
Dates: 1905-1943 ( inclusive )
Quantity: 1 box ( .3 linear feet)
Location of Collection: 2b.3.6
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

2700 24th Avenue East
Seattle, WA 98112
Phone: 206-324-1126
URL: http://www.seattlehistory.org

Languages: Collection materials are in English. 
Sponsor: Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Historical Note

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 Description

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 Collection

Restrictions on Access :  

The collection is open to the public by appointment.

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 Information

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 Collection

The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.

91.82.1: Crew at Wood & Iverson Shingle Mill, including Billy Iverson
91.82.2: Early steam and horse logging.
W.W. Wood standing near center of log in foreground.
 1905
91.82.3: Single drum steam donkey using ground lead at Roosevelt, Wash.
91.82.4: Hauling shingles on cross planked road to railroad siding near Monroe, Wash.
91.82.5-8: Bucyrus Erie D-2 diesel shovel grading for Wood & Iverson logging railroad 1929
91.82.9: Railroad grade with spar tree in background
91.82.10: Crew, including Otto Iverson, loading logs on railroad skeleton cars 1940
91.82.11: Crew with gas-powered yarding donkey 1941
91.82.12: Skagit Log Co.’s log dump at Day Creek Camp 1943
91.82.13: Government snag boat of Skagit River 1943
91.82.14: Skagit Log Co.’s log rafting works at Day Creek Camp 1942
91.82.15: Salvaging logs on the Skagit River for the Skagit Log Co. 1942
91.82.16: Northern Pacific Railroad log cars loaded with logs
91.82.17: Raising a fir spar tree at Skagit Log Co.’s Day Creek Camp 1941
91.82.18: Gas yarder on flatcar
91.82.19: Gas yarder and spar tree
91.82.20: Gas yarder operating
91.82.21: Steam locomotive and skeleton cars in winter
91.82.22: Pile driver and railroad trestle construction
91.82.23: Building being moved by truck during Hobart clean-up 1941
91.82.24: Wood & Iverson, Inc., postcard depicting the early days of the high lead (spar tree) logging at Hobart 1917
91.82.25: Gas yarder, spar trees and heel boom for loading logs
91.82.26: Spar tree being raised.
91.82.27: Spar tree in final position
91.82.28: Steam loading and yarding donkey, spar tree and crew
91.82.29: Steam donkey, spar tree and railroad track
91.82.30: Atlas diesel yarder on top of Tiger Mountain
91.82.31: Skeleton railroad cars loaded with large logs
91.82.32: Steam locomotive fighting bunkhouse fire
91.82.33: Unfinished railroad trestle
91.82.34: Steam jammer loading logs on railroad cars
91.82.35: Cedar logs on tideflats (log dump)
91.82.36: Cedar logs on tideflats
91.82.37: The old Peacock farm near Hobart, Wash. Sketch by W.H. Piggott
91.82.38-.41: Wood & Iverson mill crew, Hobart, Wash.
91.82.42: Wood & Iverson Climax locomotive #2 and train
91.82.43: Panoramic view of Wood & Iverson mill at Hobart.
Darius Kinsey (photographer)
91.82.44: Reduced copy of .43
91.82.45: Spar tree
91.82.46-.47: Negative – old Wood & Iverson camp on spur east of the Campbell ranch
91.82.48: Negative -- New road on branch of Issaquah Creek
91.82.49: Negative -- Bunk house
91.82.50: Negative – Man by building circa 1920
91.82.51: Negative -- Hot water boiler for both house and laundry, Wood & Iverson, Inc. logging camp above Campbell ranch
91.82.52: Negative -- Warren Iverson at Wood Iverson Inc. logging camp above Campbell ranch
91.82.53: Negative – Man by building
91.82.54: Negative – Man by building
91.82.55: Spar tree, two steam donkeys and railroad track
91.82.56: Russ Wood
91.82.57: Russ Wood and Pete Peterson

Subjects

  • Personal Names :
  • Iverson, Iver C., 1872-1945
  • Kinsey, Darius, 1869-1945
  • Wood, William Washington, 1868-1932
  • Geographical Names :
  • Washington (State), Western
  • Subject Terms :
  • Logging—Washington (State)—Tiger Mountain Region--History
  • Lumber Camps—Washington (State)
    • Form or Genre Terms :
    • Nitrate negatives
    • Photographic prints

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    Finding aid prepared by Sheri Boggs
    © 2006