Photo: #Second graders from Grand Rapids get a lesson on how to use a two-man crosscut saw at the Forest History Center's logging camp. About 5,000 school kids take field trips to the center each spring.
Photo: #Along with getting to interact with Forest History Center interpreters playing the roles of blacksmiths, cooks and lumberjacks, visiting school kids get to try out some of the tools that were used in the early 1900s. Here, Grand Rapids second-graders are learning to use a two-man crosscut saw.
Photo: #In 1900 there were about 300 logging camps scattered throughout northern Minnesota, employing more than 20,000 lumberjacks. The men drawn to the camps were farmers, immigrants, shopkeepers or others willing to do hard work. Here, "Willie" Hollnagel serves as clerk in the camp's store, where the men could buy wool clothing, boots or chewing tobacco.
Photo: #Forest History Center interpretive staff member Will Hollnagel portrays "Willie," a colorful accordion player who serves as bull cook in the recreated 1900s-era logging camp. A bull cook's job was to tend to stoves and fires in the camp, and to wake up the camp's 70 lumberjacks early each morning.
Photo: #This 1912 photo shows lumberjacks with the Kileen and Company Camp hauling a skidder-load of freshly cut timber from a forest near Two Harbors, Minn. It's part of a collection of early logging photos on display at the Forest History Center in Grand Rapids.
Photo: #The Forest History Center's museum contains multi-media interactive displays demonstrating the history of logging in Minnesota. Visitors can sit inside the cab of a logging truck from a company in Bovey, Minn. They can also take the controls of a modern timber harvester simulator and climb a 100-foot 1930s-era fire tower.
Photo: #Grand Rapids area resident Ray Eaton portrays the fictional "Louie T. Bernard," head cook at the Forest History Center's recreated 1900s logging camp. Breakfast was the biggest meal of the day for lumberjacks of the era. Many camps served beans, potatoes and prunes at every meal, because the commodities were cheap and they kept the men healthy. The prunes helped prevent scurvy.
Photo: #Grand Rapids second graders file out of the logging camp's bunkhouse, accompanied by a tune from accordion player and camp bull cook "Willie," played by Will Hollnagel. Logging camp bunkhouses were home to about 70 lumberjacks and other camp workers in the early 1900s.
Photo: #Forest History Center interpreter Duane Barrow serves as "Knute," the barn boss in the recreated logging camp. Teams of horses provided the power to move logs out of the woods. The logs were loaded onto skidders and sleighs in the winter, then hauled and stacked on the banks of the Mississippi and other rivers. In spring, the logs were floated downstream to the lumber mills.
Photo: #The Forest History Center is located on 170 acres of forested, rolling hills along the Mississippi River near Grand Rapids. About 20,000 people visit the center each year to get a close-up look at forest history and ecology. Thousands of school kids take field trips to the center in the spring. The facility opens to the public on Memorial Day weekend.
Photo: #Forest History Center program director Ed Nelson says logging is an important part of Minnesota's history and remains a vital industry in the state. Logging operations in the state began in the 1830s before statehood, and moved northward along the rivers. The industry peaked by about 1900, when more than 20,000 lumberjacks worked in camps throughout northern Minnesota.
Photo: #Will Hollnagel enthralls school kids with his portrayal of "Willie" the camp bull cook. These Grand Rapids second graders are listening to what it was like living in a bunkhouse with 70 lumberjacks.
Photo: #"Casey" the blacksmith, portrayed by Grand Rapids area resident Kent Johnson, keeps logging camp equipment running smoothly. Logging camps in the early 1900s typically employed a blacksmith to fix chains, saws and other iron tools. Blacksmiths were vital to camp life because traveling for days to the nearest town for repairs wasn't practical.
Photo: #Kent Johnson as "Casey" the blacksmith, hammers a hook into a piece of red-hot iron. Logging camp blacksmiths of the 1900s were responsible for keeping chains and saws in working condition. They also fitted the camp's horses with cleated horshoes, specially designed to give horses traction in snow and ice.
Photo: #A group of second-graders from Grand Rapids looks on as Duane Barrow, or "Knute" the barn boss, explains the importance of horses to logging camp life.
Photo: #"Knute," portrayed by Duane Barrow, tells a group of children that a logging camp barn boss might have earned $20 a month in wages, plus another $25 if he owns his own team of horses. He says that would have been decent pay in the early 1900s, when factory workers might earn $30 a month, and still have to pay their own room and board.
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This 1912 photo shows lumberjacks with the Kileen and Company Camp hauling a skidder-load of freshly cut timber from a forest near Two Harbors, Minn. It's part of a collection of early logging photos on display at the Forest History Center in Grand Rapids. (Photo courtesy of Forest History Center)
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Minnesota Arrival

To celebrate 150 years of statehood, Minnesota Public Radio wants to tell the story of the people who make up our state. It's a daunting task, and we'd like your help.

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Minnesota Arrival

Minnesota's forests played a role in history

by Tom Robertson, Minnesota Public Radio
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As Minnesota wraps up statehood week, history is alive up north. The Forest History Center in Grand Rapids is gearing up for a flood of visitors as school kids make spring field trips.

One of the highlights is an authentic logging camp complete with Louie the cook and an accordion player named Willie. The year is 1900 -- the setting, one of the hundreds of logging camps in northern Minnesota. It was a time when more than 20,000 lumberjacks were on the job all across the northern forest.

Grand Rapids, Minn. — The Forest History Center in Grand Rapids is celebrating 30 years as an interpretive center for the logging industry. About 5,000 school kids take field trips to the center each spring.

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A sawing lesson

The center is located on 170 acres of rolling forested hills along the Mississippi River. Visitors learn about the history and ecology of logging in Minnesota through interactive and multi-media presentations. The recreated 1900s logging camp is complete with interpretors who serve as lumberjacks, blacksmiths and cooks.

Tom Robertson's audio postcard lets you visit the history center as a second grade class from Grand Rapids learns to use a cross cut saw and sings along with Willie, the camp's accordian player.

The Forest History Center opens for the season on May 24. A number of sesquicentennial events are planned for throughout the summer.

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