Michigan’s White Pine: Inexhaustable?, Part 3

Before we get into the logging methods used in the late 1800s, we want to share a bit of context on just HOW MUCH TIMBER was logged in Michigan's logging heyday. As we shared in our last post in the series, during the latter half of the 1800s, Michigan was the country's leading producer of timber, and, in fact, produced more than the next three states combined!

Just how much wood are we talking about? Numbers like this can be hard to visualize, but are truly staggering. In the early 1800s, Michigan was about 90% forested and the supply of white pine was believed to be inexhaustible. (Sadly, it was not, but more on that later.)

In the year 1889-1890, Michigan forests produced about 5.5 BILLION board feet of mostly white pine timber. For context, this is 10 times our annual present production of all species!

In the latter half of the 1800s, Michigan forests had produced over 160 BILLION board feet of timber. To help you visualize that volume, imagine a pile of wood laid out four feet high and eight feet wide - then imagine that pile stretching long enough to go around the world FIFTY times, or to the moon and back FIVE TIMES! Incredibly, the value of all the harvested wood was greater than all the gold from California during the gold rush.

Sadly, Michigan's forests were not inexhaustible and in the absence of responsible forest management, U.P. and lower Michigan's forests were bare by about 1910. Thankfully, lessons have been learned and modern forest management enables responsibly sustainable harvesting of one of our country's most important and most renewable resources - timber.

Written By Courtney Sexton