Sawmill at Cosmopolis — 12/23/1952 — #27038_1
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Photograph Copyright Anderson & Middleton Company
United States — Washington (State) — Cosmopolis
Schumacher, John W.
Thanks to Sam Talley, who notes: "Mills have always had waste wood burners but they were cylinder shaped, and very inefficient, until the tee-pee shaped one was invented in Portland in 1916. Two basic principles were imperative in their construction: 1) the diameter of the base must be the same distance as that from the base to the cap or top and, 2) the diameter of the top must be half of that of the base. These burners burned about 50% of the material in a log as waste. The rest was made into the actual lumber. Then the Clean Air Act of 1970 said they had to be phased out in 10 years. The waste bark is now used in big boilers for power, the wood is ground into wood chips and used for paper, and the sawdust has many uses including presto-logs. There are still many of these old rusting cone shaped burners sitting idle. A fun hobby is finding them and taking photographs before they rust and disappear into history."
