Logging Railroads

Michigan’s lumbermen found many areas were too far from rivers for logs to be taken to the mills in the spring drive. After 1870 the logging railroad came into increasing use as the means of opening these regions. The Lake George and Muskegon Railroads, here, in Clare County, began hauling logs seven miles to the Muskegon River in 1877. New steam sawmills soon went up near these narrow-gauge lines because of the steady supply of timber that the logging trains furnished. Shown above is the Shays train, a type specially designed for use on the logging railroads.