Conditions of the sale

If the early history of Seeley Lake is intertwined with the lumber industry, the rise of the United States Forest Service is incontrovertibly intertwined with Seeley Lake and in particular with the Big Blackfoot Timber Sale of 1907-1910. Historian and member of the Camp Paxson Preservation Board Gary Williams has been researching that sale. The Seeley Swan Pathfinder will be bringing some of the interesting bits of information he has discovered about logging in the Seeley Lake area and also about the fledgling U.S. Forest Service.

SEELEY LAKE – The United States Forest Service (USFS) had barely been in existence two years when the Big Blackfoot Milling Company won the bid to log 50 million board feet of timber in the Seeley Lake area. Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot no doubt looked upon this first large project as an opportunity to set the standard for future timber sales. Pinchot also had personal knowledge of the area to be logged, having hiked through the Clearwater drainage and "the old cutting of the Big Blackfoot Lumber Company – a power in the land in those days." Pinchot would also have been familiar with the Interior Department's timber trespassing lawsuit against the lumber company's predecessor, The Montana Improvement Company. All of these considerations factored into the drafting of the official contract for the 1907 Seeley Lake area timber sale.

According to the contract, USFS anticipated making $150,000 on the completed sale. The exact amount would be determined after the final number of board feet was assessed. Big Blackfoot would have three years to complete the contract, but each year one-third of the lumber was to be cut and removed and $12,500 paid to USFS.

Big Blackfoot also was obliged to agree to 28 additional stipulations under the heading: "We further promise and agree to cut and remove said timber in strict accordance with the following rules and regulations."

In essence, these stipulations put an appointed USFS forester in direct control of the entire project.

In response to past offenses such as the "rubber forty" in which tree harvesting illegally extended onto adjacent properties, the contract expressly stated a forest officer would clearly mark the property sale boundary and no cutting was to take place outside that boundary. In addition, the forester would mark the trees to be cut. Not even logs to be used for road construction, chutes or skidways for the lumbering operation could be felled until approved by the forest officer. Every marked tree, any dead timber sound enough to be merchantable or used for railroad ties or for mining timber was to be cut and removed from the property within the specified year. No unmarked living tree was to be cut.

For a company accustomed to clear-cutting the land without restrictions and for lumberjacks who got paid by the number of board feet they cut, these constraints were odious.

To make sure the stipulations were adhered to, the USFS included clauses that forced the company to agree to pay double -- $6/ board foot – for any unmarked tree cut; any marked tree left uncut; any dead timber, standing or down, left behind though considered merchantable in the judgment of the forest officer; any timber wasted in tops, stumps or partially sound logs; any unmarked tree or young growth damaged in cutting; or any tree that, in the process of cutting, became lodged but was not subsequently removed.

The contract further stated stumps should be cut as low as possible, "none higher than 18 inches." An exception could be made for "swell butted larch," but only at the discretion of the forest officer. Construction of roads, dams, bridges or other structures necessary to complete the logging likewise required consent of the forester.

Because the new USFS was founded on the principle that the National Forests should be managed for the good of the people, the contract also had provisions for clean-up of the harvested area: "The branches shall be lopped from all trees cut and all lops and debris caused by logging shall be piled compactly for burning at a safe distance from living trees, or otherwise disposed of as directed by the Forest officer in charge...In no instance shall the brush piling be allowed to fall behind the cutting, except when the depth of the snow makes proper piling impossible..."

The contract also contained detailed scaling information, specifying the lengths to cut logs and establishing six inches as the smallest usable diameter at the top of the tree. Scaling later became a matter of contention between the contracting parties. The Timber Sale series will discuss the matter in more detail in a subsequent issue.

USFS did add a provision giving the lumber company permission "to flood such lands within said National Forest as may be necessary for the construction of a dam on Clearwater River, to be used as a storage reservoir and in driving the timber covered by this contract..." But the positioning of the dam required the consent of the forester.

A final clause dealt with the possibility of a fire. All personnel from lumberjacks to "purchaser" were required to take measures to prevent fires and to extinguish any that might occur. If a fire were caused by "fault or neglect of the Company," Big Blackfoot would be fined $10 per acre burned, in addition to the value of timber destroyed by the fire.

If any doubt still lingered concerning the oversight of the forest officer, the contract plainly stated: "The decision of the Forester shall be final in the interpretation of the regulations governing the sale, cutting and removal of the timber covered by this contract."

Big Blackfoot Milling Company was required to submit a $5,000 good faith bond. The company's signature on the contract signified their agreement to all the provisions of the contract and acknowledged the bond money would be forfeit "upon failure on our part to fulfill all and singular conditions herein set forth."

Though the contract must have seemed overly restrictive to a company accustomed to harvesting timber in the manner most expedient for their mill with no concern for the condition of the land in the aftermath of harvesting, John R. Toole signed his name as president of the Big Blackfoot Milling Company.