Re: McGiffert gets the boom at Long Leaf, LA

Attached hereto should be photos I shot a couple years back of the two McGiffert loaders at Collier. John Taubeneck has done a lot of research into the Clyde files and other resources, and here's what he has on these two. The stiff boom model is Clyde c/n 678, built April 1907 for the McCloud River Railroad Company; to McCloud River Lumber Company 5/31/1922; to Kesterson Lumber Company, Dorris, CA; to Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Klamath Falls, OR, 1929; Donated to Collier logging museum circa 1961. This machine is displayed with three badly deteriorated log flats from the Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company operations in Bend, Oregon. The swing boom machine is Clyde c/n 1281, built 1926 for Big Lakes Box Company, Klamath Falls, Oregon; to Palmerton Lumber Company 1947; to Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, who used it through 1961 before donating it to Collier in 1963.

There are seven known surviving McGiffert loaders, the two in Collier, the two in Longleaf, the one in the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth, one resting upside down and mostly buried in a lakebed in British Columbia, and one listed as being on display in 1999 in El Salto, Durango, Mexico.

One more McCloud connection, the photos of the McGiffert lying on its side is also from McCloud. I also threw in one other picture of a McCloud River McGiffert taken sometime in the 1940s or early 1950s.

The Clyde four-line skidder gained some acceptance in the vary early 1900s, but I don't know how many others beyond the one you have survived.

Thanks for the interesting discussion!

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2016 11:49PM by JDLX.