Winfield Scott Gerrish opens the 7.1-mile-long Lake George and Muskegon River Railroad in Clare County. Following a warm winter that seriously hampered logging activities, Gerrish moves 20 million board feet of logs to the Muskegon River. The next year he increases his output sixfold. Though Gerrish is not the first to build a Michigan logging railroad, his operation is well-publicized and successful. It revolutionizes lumbering in Michigan. By 1882, thirty-two narrow-gauge logging railroads will operate in the state. The railroads permit new areas to be logged, all sizes of trees to be cut and, most importantly, allow year-round transportation of logs to the sawmills. Commercial logging in Michigan has flourished since the Civil War, drawing immigrants from around the world—especially Scandinavians, Germans, Irish and Canadians. Michigan will retain its national leadership in lumber production until 1900. By the end of the lumbering era, Michigan loggers will have cut 161 billion board feet of pine logs and 50 billion board feet of hardwoods. That is equivalent to a half-mile wide, one-inch plank road from New York to San Francisco. In dollar value, Michigan lumber will outvalue all the gold extracted from California by a billion dollars. It will also create a furniture industry centered in Grand Rapids that flourishes well into the twentieth century. However, wasteful logging practices will leave enormous cutover acres that are periodically ravaged by fire. In 1881—in one of Michigan's worst natural disasters—fires in the Thumb will leave 300 people dead. This fire also will be the first disaster relief project for the American Red Cross.

Michigan Historical Center, Department of History, Arts and Libraries
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