History of Saginaw county, Michigan; together with ... portraits ... and biographies ... History of Michigan ...

HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY.

383

THE EMERSON MILL.
During the year 1836 another mill was built nearly opposite
Saginaw City, known as the " Emerson Mill," considered at that
period as a model of the kind, having a capacity of 3,000,000 feet,
and the first lumber shipment was made from this mill in 1836. It
formed a building 55x120 feet, containing three upright saws, one
butting saw, one edging table, one engine of 75-horse power, three
boilers, each 18 feet long by 42 inches in diameter. This concern
was perhaps the largest of the kind in the State. It closed down
in 1856, two years after the burning of its predecessor. After 1836
some attention began to be paid to the manufacture of lumber, but
the panic that followed 1836 produced a lethargy that existed for
some years, and it was not until 1849 that the business began to
brighten up, and several mills were erected. In 1854 there were
23 mills on the Saginaw river, with a capacity for 60,000,000 feet.
The mills were of the cheaper class, the average cut being not over
3,000,000 feet. In 1857 there were 44 mills in operation on the
Saginaw river, manufacturing that year 113,700,000 feet of lumber.
In 1867 there were 82 mills in operation, manufacturing that year
423,963,190 feet of lumber. In 1870 there were 83 mills operated,
the cut that year aggregating 576,726,600 feet, increased to 923,000,000 feet in 1880. Notwithstanding the financial crisis of
1836-'7 the pioneers labored on, until in 1849 they beheld the return of prosperous times. Henceforth they were destined to
tender a daily welcome to men of enterprise. The farmer as well
as the lumberman was received warmly. The advent of labor
and capital to the Valley, as witnessed 30 years ago, is thus described:
" There is scarcely a day when there are not more or less parties
here from the Eastern cities, negotiating for mill sites, or purchasing pine lands, and the steady, rapid influx and tendency of capital
now setting in this direction, while it is gratifying and exhilarating
to those who have stood by the country in its days of poverty and
destitution, leads naturally to the inquiry, how long this fruitful
and prolific resource of the present growth and prosperity of Saginaw, unprecedented as it is, and unnoticed and little understood at
large through the State, is like to continue in view of the constant
and immense drain upon it. This resource is derived chiefly from
the tributaries of the Saginaw river, there being little or no pine
upon the river proper, except to a limited extent, and of an inferior
character, near to lower Saginaw. The Cass river, which empties
into the Saginaw about two miles above Saginaw City, together
with the tributaries making into it, passes through a belt of pine
100 miles in length, and varying in width from one and a
half to ten miles.
"The logs when cut are hauled up to the banks of the small
streams, and there await a high stage of water to be floated into the
main stream. These logs are not rafted, but are floated in bodies