April 26 , 2008
Camp 18 Restuarant/Museum - A Lumber Tribute

It's a beautiful sunny day, so Lily and I take her Grandma to the coast. First stop, Camp 18, a restaurant/museum at mile marker 18. [the rest of the trip]

Camp 18, Elsie Oregon

A Tall Tale by Brian Doyle
One day, a long time ago, a logger named Gordon Smith dreamed of building the biggest log cabin anyone had ever seen. He'd fell, buck, haul, and cut the timber—red cedar and Douglas fir—all by himself on his property of deep Oregon forest near Elsie. When he was done he'd fill his Bunyanesque cabin with logging tools, machinery, and photographs, to which reminiscent old loggers, curious children, and everyone else, too, would be drawn. Maybe that way the colorful, dangerous, and laborious profession that defined the Pacific Northwest for so long would never die. Camp 18, he'd call it—18 miles from the Coast Highway. And besides, the old logging camps were always numbered, not named.

The short version of Gordon Smith's story is that he built his dream. He made the biggest log cabin you ever saw, complete with a 20-ton, 85-foot fir ridgepole surrounded by cedar and fir beams and two 500-pound fir front doors. He filled the inside with crosscut saws, topping axes, calk boots, and a huge stuffed cougar. Then he really indulged his fascination with logging by salvaging steam locomotives, boilers, a band saw, and even an ancient fire engine, all of which he scattered around outside the cabin as a kind of "open-air logging museum," as he says. This, then, is what you find as you're driving along Highway 26 toward the coast: Suddenly, on the south side of the road, you come across the biggest log cabin you've ever seen. [the rest of the story]

 

NOTE: Lily's albums require Flash Player for Viewing
 
 
HOME :: LILY'S LOGBOOK :: SHILOH SHEPHERD BOUTIQUE :: BACK
 
 
Please contact the webmaster with questions about this site.
Copyright © 2002-2008, Creative Office Solutions ~wildeoffice, Jacki Wilde. All rights reserved.
All pictures affiliated with this site are products and are secured by copyright and may not be used without written permission of the owner of this site.

last updated: 7/2/08

web statistic