Dick is right. The length of logs was (is) dependent on the projected use for the finish product subject to the limitations of the harvesting and transportation methods, the mill handling and cutting equipment, and even the species being cut. The logs have to accommodate some flexibility with added surplus length removed in the milling processes. The technology has greatly improved; there is much less waste at the mills.
Out west the fallers usually also bucked (cut the trees to log lengths) and had (have) to be very knowledgeable as how they cut a tree into logs could greatly alter the value at the mill (one of my friends told me about $50 mistakes with one cut; quite an amount given the raw log value at the time). Logs with minimal knots or flaws grade higher and command a higher price; how a tree is bucked can give you that (or not). So where the trees allow it you might have a shorter log which will grade clear and longer logs with lower grades from the same tree. In the early days a lot was also left in the woods as not valuable enough to haul out.
The Sumpter Valley photos show a lot of pine and some fir and other species, the markets being the construction and mining industries mainly. Other Northwest operations farther west on the other side of the Cascades cut even longer logs routinely because the trees were taller and the markets were available for long lumber. Benson Logging and Lumbering was famous for its use of disconnect trucks and very long longs; 160' and more for sailing ship spars and such.
Modern commonly available construction lumber lengths are typically 8, 10, 12 and 16 feet, with the majority of the volume being in the shorter lengths. Framing studs are commonly cut just under eight feet. But it was not always so. Older buildings and especially residences were often framed with the "balloon" framing method where a wall stud would go up as one length through more than one story. I have worked in house walls with 2"x 4" studs which were actually 2" by 4", not nominally so after planing, and the length was up to 24 feet, running all the way from the foundation to the rafters. Without the use of plywood (yet to be perfected) the walls and floors were sheathed with rough cut 1x12's as long as could be gotten, and the roof with similar rough cut for the base of the cedar shingles.
The tongue and groove flooring? I have seen fir flooring ripped up where the tongue split off the board the same width for the full length- the flooring was completely clear heartwood. The floor boards ran the full length of the house and I measured- each floor board was 32 feet long. That would have been cut out of the butt log of a very large fir. This was a rural farmhouse.
Structural wood beams were and are another application; but where we would now use engineered wood (glue-lams, wood I-joists and such) the operations cut and milled large timbers. I have worked in buildings with very large beams. One in particular with a clear span of 54 foot Douglas Fir beams of cross section 16" by 32" (and they were not all log centers either). This was for a paint store, a common utilitarian structure of the era and not a one off architectural statement.
From the locations and the building construction dates, the lumber in all these examples almost certainly started its journey on logging railroads.
Timothy
