Survey Team, photograph by Isaac Simpson, Maine, ca.1910. Maine State Museum. Gift of Jim Thompson, 2017.24.459.
Survey Team, photograph by Isaac Simpson, Maine, ca.1910. Maine State Museum. Gift of Jim Thompson, 2017.24.459.
As time passed, logging companies depleted the timber stock near waterways. This forced them to move their operations deeper in the Maine woods.
As they opened new areas for lumbering, survey teams traveled miles into the forest to plan the upcoming season's timber harvest. They estimated how much timber stood on a particular piece of land, determined where logging roads could best be laid and identified waterways that would be helpful in getting the logs to the mills. Once a logging plan had been prepared, a group of men worked through the summer and autumn. They cleared paths through the woods, built dams to control water flow, and eliminated obstacles in the rivers.