This paper was completed about 1904.
J. E. O’Rouark
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
In the heart of the Inland Empire of the Pacific Northwest, which “empire” includes the Columbia basin and, many other sources of wealth real and potential, stands the last large body of white pine in America.
Pinus Strobus (or Pinus Monticola, to be exact) colonized these hills long ages before state or international lines were drawn; so her habitat, with its nucleus in Idaho, extends into Washington, Montana and British Columbia. This is a terrain of moderate mountain ranges, rolling plateaus and sheltered valleys in the direct path of the southwest trade winds. Long ago this terrain was raw and angular from the effects of upheaval, volcanic and glacial action. The Chinook has been working through the dim ages carrying in volcanic ash and other dust from that same Columbia basin and laying down a comfortable blanket of soil in which the forests thrive.
I cannot say whether the delicate shy nature of the western white pine is due to soil and climatic conditions or not. It may be that this aristocrat - this heir of all the ages in timber evolution - Just refuses to live where its epicurean tastes are not all suited. Perfect drainage is necessary to its well being and dry seasons take heavy toll of the mature trees,
The logger who enters these forests may be a conservationist at heart, as well as a bread winner or a maker of payrolls nevertheless, he cornea to destroy and he knows it. Any attempt to preserve or to perpetuate a standing forest after the Logger takes his choice must prove futile. Any abrasion of root or limb will result in decay. Tall and slender and with out a tap root, growing in dense phalanx, as they do, in a loose, mellow soil, these trees cannot stand alone; the same wind that fostered the original forest will blow its remnant down.
Of the white pine trees that queened the forests from Bay of Fundy shore westward to the Red River prairies, but few are left. They were magnificent trees, much more rugged and hardy than their far-oft cousins in the Inland. Monarch and plebian alike, those forests are gone and have no comeback except in the mountainous regions of New England, New York and Pennsylvania; there nature is making a brave attempt to renew the white pine. The New England states are producing over 300 million board feet of white pine products annually, mostly cut from a young growth and with little regard to forest renewal or perpetuation.
A great part of the White pine area of the Inland is included in forest reserves and under federal control, and it is here that nature with the aid of man’s intelligence will grow and is growing new forests from tiny seeds.
In the 80’s of last century a great transcontinental railroad was built through the inland, and the heart of its forest area. Induced by a large grant of public land and backed by faith in the future, it followed the course of least resistance down Clark’s Fork river to Lake Pend Oreille and across to Spokane Falls; thence it passed out over the rolling bunch grass country to cross the Columbia and find a way through the Cascade range down to Puget Sound.
Settlers flocked in advance of the railroad and in its wake, and spread out on the wonderful meadow lands they found in the western foothills. Timber they found of no value beyond their immediate needs for building, fencing and fuel. There was timber to burn and destroy in all the states east of the Mississippi, Michigan was at its height of lumber production; Wisconsin and Minnesota were getting under way, and the great southern pineriea were still turpentine woods.
The valley settlers in the Inland used the nearest timber to hand in the construction of log walls, and they split the giant cedars into lumber and roof “shakes”. White pine had less value to them than the spruce and lodge pole found skirting the open meadows. If fire started in the timber they paid no heed as long as it went up hill and. away from their homes.
In 1884 the great lead-silver deposits of the Coeur d’Alene were discovered in the center of the white pine area, and eager prospectors fired. wood hillsides to lay bare more seams of wealth. White pine was not a good mine timber, and red fir, tamarack and even hemlock were selected for the miners use.
During the late 90’s, all the meadow land being taken, settlers began to edge into the timber; and then, following the analogy of all things American, almost over night the value of white pine was discovered.
It then was easy to find a quarter section of the foothills with from 4 to 7 million feet of white pine to say nothing of the wealth of cedar poles growing between. Professional locators got busy; they would make preliminary survey of the claims, build cabins and collect a nice fat fee for services rendered. Naturally crooks will flook to easy money and soon the woods were full of fake locators. Men with little knowledge of cruising and less conscience would locate settlers indiscriminately on railroad, mineral or school lands. Duplicate claimants were numerous and sometimes as high as four on one quarter section. Much litigation and heartbreak resulted and some killings are on record; yet on the whole the white pine squatters were a peaceful bunch of the Nordic strain and carried their troubles with fortitude.