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The abundance of standing timber in the surrounding hills helped give Renton its start in life as a community.  "Old Growth" evergreen forests of Cedar, Douglas Fir and Hemlock were ripe for harvesting and quickly became a valuable commodity to early entrepreneurs seeking to fill the demand for lumber in a growing region.

Shown here is an early photograph of lumbermen with their horse-drawn wagon.  On the wagon, a log that I would guess to be some four-feet in diameter is seen.  During the hey day of logging in the region, harvesting trees measuring in excess of four-feet in diameter was not uncommon.

The Kennydale area, north of Renton, is the scene of this image.  The location is the site of the McKnight Jr. High School.  Logging was hard and laborious profession.  Trees were harvested by hand, using axes and saws.  Once down, the logs were often hauled by horse, mule or ox teams to the local sawmill.

Shown here (l-r) is: Len Davis (on his horse), Ed Powell, John Ardahl, J. A. Patterson, George Thomas and James Putnam.

Timber in the Pacific Northwest was plentiful. 

Seen here is a huge cedar that nine men can be seen embracing.  The location of this photograph is somewhere in Skagit County, north of King County.  However, trees like this were not uncommon back in the day and quickly harvested.

It is hard to imagine a tree of this size unless you visit the Giant Redwoods in Northern California.  Even harder to imagine is how a tree of this size was harvested and milled into lumber.

The township of Slaughter (now the city of Auburn) was not unlike other townships in the region.  During the latter half of the 1800s, the timber industry sprawled out in all directions from Seattle.  By the time this image was taken, the flow of settlers had swelled from a trickle in the 1850s to a torrent in just a few decades.  The growing population demanded more and more lumber.

This timber mill was located in the town of Slaughter.  Shown here are about 14 unidentified mill workers with a team of oxen.  To the far left of this image is what appears to be a railroad car.

Life in the logging camps were often close and cramped.  Very few camps were close enough to a township where loggers could take up residence at a boarding house.  Most times. loggers lived in company camps that were, in themselves, small towns.

After a long day's work, loggers often spent many idle hours together in bunk houses, like this, passing time playing cards or tending to daily necessities such as laundry.

The company often afforded Spartan living arrangements in the timber camps.  Unmarried loggers had to make do with what they were afforded and made the best with what they had to earn their wages.

Feeding several hundred hardworking logger was not easy task.  In a cafeteria/Mess Hall style arrangement, hungry loggers sat and ate simple and filling meals.  The cooks and help tried to make a simple meal more enjoyable and appealing than just ladling stew into a bowl with a cup of coffee.

Shown here is a cook and his helper at a logging camp cook house.  Four tables are set and ready to seat, perhaps, two dozen loggers.

This hearty bunch of loggers pose for this photograph at a logging camp in or near Renton (?)  For the most part, this image depicts a typical logging crew.  In this image Eric Englund is the only identified logger in this group (front row, second from the left).  It appears that he is sitting between the youngest members of the crew.