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

Overview of the Collection

	Repository Name:		Museum of History & Industry Sophie Frye Bass Library 2700 24th Avenue East Seattle, WA 98112 Phone: 206-324-1126 URL: http://www.seattlehistory.org
	Collection Number:		1991.82
	Creator:		Wood and Iverson Lumber Company
	Title:		Wood & Iverson Co. Collection
	Dates:		1905-1943 (inclusive)
	Quantity:		1 box .3 linear feet
	Languages:		Collection materials are in English.
	Summary:		This collection consists of photographs and negatives taken of the Wood & Iverson logging operations in Roosevelt and Hobart, Washington.
	Location of Collection:		2b.3.6

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.

Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

Donated by Gertrude Wood Stack in 1991.

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

Related Information

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. (text/html)

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)

Subjects

Iverson, Iver C., 1872-1945

Kinsey, Darius, 1869-1945

Wood, William Washington, 1868-1932

Washington (State), Western

Logging—Washington (State)—Tiger Mountain Region--History

Lumber Camps—Washington (State)

Nitrate negatives

Photographic prints

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.

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

91.82.9: Railroad grade with spar tree in background

91.82.10: Crew, including Otto Iverson, loading logs on railroad skeleton cars

91.82.11: Crew with gas-powered yarding donkey

91.82.12: Skagit Log Co.’s log dump at Day Creek Camp

91.82.13: Government snag boat of Skagit River

91.82.14: Skagit Log Co.’s log rafting works at Day Creek Camp

91.82.15: Salvaging logs on the Skagit River for the Skagit Log Co.

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

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

91.82.24: Wood & Iverson, Inc., postcard depicting the early days of the high lead (spar tree) logging at Hobart

image

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

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

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

Overview of the Collection

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