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WI Lumber Industry!. Geography and historical significance of the WI timber industry. Wide range of wood products and their manufacturing centers. Direction of water flow – benefit . Vegetation. Vegetation – plant cover Vast forests of conifer (softwood evergreen)trees in the north.
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WI Lumber Industry! Geography and historical significance of the WI timber industry. Wide range of wood products and their manufacturing centers. Direction of water flow – benefit
Vegetation • Vegetation – plant cover • Vast forests of conifer (softwood evergreen)trees in the north. • White pine being the most notable • Some hardwood trees • Prairies (few trees), savannas (grassland with trees), and forests of deciduous (hardwood trees) in the south. • Oaks and maples • Tensions zone • Transition area from deciduous trees in the south to mainly conifer trees in the north
Industry • In the state’s early years, logging was the largest/most famous WI industry. • Lumber barons (entrepreneurs dominated the industry)were made fabulously wealthy. • Lumber (wood used as building material) encouraged the northward extension of rail lines and the establishment of milling and manufacturing centers.
Collapse • Some of the previously forested regions have been logged (cut), resulting in fewer or smaller trees today. • Much of the northern third was left clear. • State instituted conservation practices to ensure that some forests could grow back.
Timber Conservation • 1800s industry used extremely wasteful practices in harvesting and processing timber. • Clear-cut regardless of their quality • Milling process wasted huge amounts of sawdust. • Fire/waste => 40% of timber resources never reached sawmills. • Left behind huge amounts of dry wood and brush piles, which often caught fire in times of drought. • Peshtigo Fire in 1871
Conservation continued… • Menominee Indians • Established their own timber industry in 1854 on their reservation. • Instead of clear-cutting, they used sustainable practices • Cut only a portion of their timber at a time, allowing it to grow back before it was cut again. • Today, the tribe’s logging and milling industry is world famous.
Conservation continued… • 1930s – state and federal governments began to adopt conservation practices. • Established state parks • Regulated timber harvests in state and national parks. • Initiated reforestation (seedling planting) projects • Few patches of old-growth white pine still stand in WI • Cathedral Pines (Oconto County) • In Lake Superior, some firms are attempting to harvest old white pine submerged near the mouths of rivers and selling the high-quality wood at high prices.
