Dam on Fortine Creek

This 1922 photo of the Dam on Fortine Creek shows more than just the old logging splash dam. My mother was about 8 when the picture was taken, living on the next place downstream – and avoiding the creek because you didn’t know when they would add a stick of dynamite to open the gates and send a new batch of logs down the creek to the mill in Eureka.

It was transportation – and is the reason that Fortine Creek below the old dam is navigable water – this was step one in interstate transportation of lumber.

This is the structure that supplied logs to the sawmill in Eureka until the middle of the 1950’s. By the time Dad retired and we moved to Trego (1960) virtually every part of the structure shown in this photo was gone -a bit of the dam on the right (west) edge was left, along with the west abutment. Dad enjoyed getting out on the remaining piece of the dam to fish.

Now, nearly 70 years have passed since its final log run. Most of the erosion between Trego and Eureka – caused by the frequent floods running logs – have healed. And the great timber strike of 1917 started at the dam, when the crew that ran the logs to Eureka went on strike. In the photo, the little dam doesn’t look so significant that it could be the beginning of the nation’s largest timber strike.

An edit to answer the question “Where?” approximate location indicated in red.