The Mill City enterprise., July 02, 1959, Page 2, Image 2

l—THE MILL < ITY ENTERPRISE TH! RSDAY, JULY 2. 1959
Then and No*—Gooch Logging Operations in 1.00 and 19?0
on Ail Savings Accounts
at U.S. National !
Effective July 1,1959
Plus Bank Safety
Now, Wore «han ever, it pay» io »ave at U.S. National! Beginning July 1, 1959, all
saving» accounts will earn 3 per cent interest, compounded semi-annually.
Over and above the oh* ious rew ards of saving, this increased interest rate conatlrutea
a powerful "bonus ' advantage for those folks who »cck financial security plus bank
safety for their hard earned savings dollars.
Obtn tr
l»}cur mi i>^in.imnihtrt al U. S. byJuly 13...tarn 3f~ inttrttt frem July 1st.
Old Time Cabin
Fred Gooch (far right, pic­ I
ture top) was only 12 years
old when this picture w as tak­
en in front of his father’s
cabin. Others pictured, from
left, are Jasper Force, W. R.
Culy, A. F. Gooch, Jason
Dowd. Al Ish. Frank Gooch,
Nathan W. Gooch (Fred’s
grandfather).
The New Town got a school
(see below), complete with
teacher and more than its
share of pupils.
I red Gooch
OREGON 'S ONLY
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Mill City, Oregon
Editor'- No«»-: We are indebted
to Crow's
Lumber
Digest
of
Portland for the article and pic­
tures about Fred Gooch and his
logging operation.
Fred Go-jch began logging at the ing bridge work. For awhile afte, ntendent for several outfits, then a
age of 12. driving a bud team. Today that, Gooch logged for Charlie Spa <1- job with Shaw & Bertram at Klamath
seventy-one years later, he’s st 11 log­ ing with hoi» team- At about this I'nil- . . . log ioreman tor Hammond
ging Running h ■ own show with time a new era began in his 1 fe He Lumber Co. at Mill City . . . Logging
cats.
built hie own mill at Scio, cutting manager for C. C. Cameron at Al­
You have to stop and let that »ink mainly railroad ties but that was on­ bany, then a job with th< Hammond-
in a moment. Seventy-one years is a ly a sort of curtain-raiser, for in Tillamook Lumber Company at Gari­
are bom. October of 1907 he went uack io ti e baldi.
■ long. full lifetime
! Men
___ ____
grow to maturity, work at their jobs area where he had started out.
In 1931 Goo h and his two sons.
for forty, sometimes fifty years
. .
There he built another sawm 11 and Fred Jr. and Earl, built a mill at
Others take their places.
'founded a town. The town of G< ocn < 1 e.-well, where they also had a log-
Fred Gooch ha- been logging for is located three to four miles west of ging operation. They were there four
seventy-one year—longer than many­ Mill City. A new era had started b - or five years. As Gooch describes it:
men live. And he’- still at it!
cause the young lumberman decided "A lot of work and little return.”
Many months ago. when we started to start it It was time for this pion­ Those were depression cays. Re­
looking for old-time lumbermen and eer country to beg.n fighting its way- member
loggers, we heard about Fred Gooch out of the frontier stage. Gooch
After that, Gooch was a log fore­
and got in touch with him. Accom­ traveled to the county -eat at Albany, man for the Mt. Jefferson Lumber
to
see
about
getting
a
school
for
the
panied by his son, Fred Gooch. Jr.,
(o. at Lyons for six y< ats. But from
w-ho operates a logging supply firm, town that wa- growing up around his that time on, he has betn on his own.
the veteran of the woods came to visit mill. He was turned down.
running hi- own -how. He now oper­
us. Wiry’- rugged, straight a an
But trie new town got a -chuol just ates three TD 24 tractors, has his
arrow, he is a, clear-eyed and alert the same Young Gooch built it him- own fire truck. Lading madhines.
as a man of forty. A man of action seif. and r.:re i a teacher whose «alary
power saws—the works. And it seems
A man on the go
lie paid out of Id own D icker 1 r like whenever there is a tough job
It was on Apr 1 1, 1H76 that Fred several years Her name wa Satai that no one else wants to handle,
school wa- popular, they call on Gooch.
Gooch was born in Fremont. Mich. Bradshaw H
At that time the Civil War was as too, and attracted student- away
And no wonder! He’s seen it all­
fresh in people's minds as World from the closest public school. The
met a • the problems you can meet,
youngsters
pieferreu
the
new
school
War II is today. No one had even
not only -tailed with bull teams,
dreamed of an automobile, or a radio to trudging nearly three miles along but followed through with all the im­
If they had ra.lroad tracks to the county's school.
—or a logging cat
proved types of logging as they de­
dreamed of such things and told
And that wasn’t all. Progress came veloped such a.- logging with horses
about it, they would have been set to the town of Gooch in other ways,
team donkeys skylines, skidders and
down as looney, and perhaps ended in IPOs or 1U09 Fred Gooch installed <1 esei yarders. Most popular in to­
up in the nut house.
an electric light plant. He provided day'- logg.ng are the big diesel cats
‘
To all intents and purposes, it was light free of < charge
for everyone , and arches, of which Gooch now op-
still the covered wagon age. Things equipped to u-e electricity, j And so (erates several in the Santiam tern-
were still being done in the covered this little frontier town of Gooch, tory.
wagon way when the boy’s parents buried in the Northwest woods, was
An<| that - about how those seven­
brought him to Silverton, Oregon, at illuminated by elecricity like the most ty one years went by The boy who
the age of eight. Early in life he be- modern city in the nation . . Because started driving bull teams at 12 years
came accustomed to the sights and a logger who started work at 12 had of age. now rides the most modern of
sounds and smells of the Northwest progressive, ambitious ideas His own ‘,ats as
ie a» many a kid. He’s
woods
They became part of him. -< hooling had been scanty—hit or had a good I fe and raised a fine fam­
He became accustomed to logger; miss. He didn't want it that way with ily The baby daughter born to the
and the work of loggers Logging his own children.
young logger and his wife is now
and lumber had been his family'»
Maybe the lumber “boom” about Mrs. Sylvia Human'of .Mill City.
business for a long time His grand­ that t.me helped Gooch carry out Hi» son. Earl Gooch is with Manu­
father. Nathan Weber Gooch, had some ol his modern plans. This boom facturers Life Insurance
Co.
at
been a logger in Michigan He had followed the 1906 earthquake at San Salem while Fred Gooch. Jr., oper­
come to Oregon by way of California- I ianci-co Railroad ties zoomed up ate- the Gooch Logging Supply Firm
and had proved up on timber claims tv a price of $10 per thousand feet. of ->weet Home, with branches at
in the Santiam region of the Cascade At hi- Scio mill. Gooch had netted 1 hilomath and Lyons. There are two
Mountains.
"
6-19 per thousand, and until grandchildren and three great grand­
The boy's father. Fred Amos the “boom" he didn't do much bet­ children. They say Great Grandpa
Gooch worked in the woods and ter at Gooch—about $7. The ties from is as young at heart as any of them
mills. Life was rough and primitive his Scio mill had to be delivered to
It was just about three quarters of
in those pioneer days of a new coun­ the right-of-way at that price, and a century ago that his own grand-
try. In the battle to wrest a liveli­ »tuck.
father. Nathan Weber Gooch, staked
hood from the land with the crude
Perhaps it was just the laws of out hi» timber claims in the Cascades
tools of those days, even the young economics, and perhaps not. At any He built a log cabin in a beautifully
boys got into the act at an early age rate, Gooch believed in utilizing all -cenic spot overlook.ng a waterfalls.
Fred was the oldest in a family of six °f «he log he tould With the facilities As a boy, Fred Gooch knew the spot
children. At the age of 12 he assum­ “f those days, that wasn't much com­ well, and loved it Years nave gone
ed his responsibility as a bread win­ pared to today's standards, but it was by since then, decade following de-
ner and took on a job driving a bull a step in the right direction. Other ■ cade. With the passage of time, the
team
tie mill» just wasted the slabs, but oij log cabin has gradually crumbl­
Next cam»- a job with the San' am • ’ och turned them into dimension. ed away until only the stone fireplace
Lumber Company at Gates jobs at
• which he realized $6 per thousand. remains. But the spot is still in
Shcllburn and Jefferson. . . . The N ’ -itch. considering today’s prices, Gooch's possession. The woods and
years began to go by, and young but in those days it probably seem­ the t meless waterfall are still there
Gooch was 19, a «nan who knew his ed like a lot.
-And overlooking the falls, now called
job and could compete with the best
Some ether pr.ee»; One« he cut a Gooch Falls, Fred Gooch has own
And »o. in that year of 1896, he mar UxU
feet long, for a house mov- cabin.
The old fireplace and the
ried Allie M. Titus. He had a log­ i er an.i oilected the top jrice of |25 cabin seem to link the past with the
ging job with a man named Berry ■ He did equally well sawing a sitick to present for the man who drove bull
In another year or so he was logging t’e used as the gunwale of a ferry. It teams as a boy but who is so young
around Detroit. A family man
A wa* 36 inches wide, six inches thick at heart that he’s »till thrilled st the
daughter had arrived, the first of * i . fe*t lor g He pocketed $25 per promise of the future.
three children. They named the baby ! thousand for thi« too
SylVlA
_ __
, Gooch traded
U.UCAI hie m»>
1914
mill rvi
for
Then <ame a four-year job with the P rt.and property. Then came another
¡CorvaPi» and Eastern Railroad, dr- -» es of job« . ' . as logging reper­