Initially, the timber industry in the Adirondacks grew slowly due to the difficulty of transporting felled trees out of the remote region. Significant logging and lumbering began in the Adirondacks around 1813, and by 1850, New York had surpassed Maine to become the largest producer of lumber in the United States.¹ Industrial growth and urban expansion fueled the demand for lumber. As America expanded westward, prospectors sought lumber from the old-growth forests of the Adirondacks. American railroad expansion increased the rate of logging. Only two ties “as a rule could be cut from a single tree”.² As a result, it is estimated that during the railroad expansion boom (1810-1890) 30 million to 60 million trees were consumed per year.³

Before the expansion of timbering in the Adirondacks, lumbermen transported trees from the forests to mills by thatching logs into rafts and floating them down waterways. Teams of mules and men would haul the log-rafts overland around obstacles, waterfalls, or cascades.⁴ The log-raft method, however, was not successful in the mountainous terrain of the Adirondacks, so a new technique was developed: the “loose-log drive”. Large groups of un-thatched logs were “driven” (floated) down rivers and streams.⁵ Tree felling took place close to rivers and streams in the fall and early winter. Lumbermen would then strip the trees of their bark and limbs before leaving everything on the forest floor until returning in the early spring. This cycle allowed the logs to cure for a season while also utilizing the high water levels and quick currents of the spring melt for their transportation. Softwood trees, such as pine, hemlock, and spruce, rather than hardwoods, such as maple and birch, quickly became the focus of the loggers as the greater buoyancy of the softwood trees led to easier transport.⁶ The techniques developed in the Adirondacks influenced logging nationwide.