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Page 8 — Shelton—Mason County Journal Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023
' Water tanks are pictured at an unidentified Simpson Logging Co. camp.
Photo courtesy of Mason County Historical Musuem.
Oxbow rain
he following story is
Tfrom the Feb. 2,
edition of the Shelton~
Mason County Journal. 0x-
bow is in the Wynoochee River
drainage
,At Simpson Logging Com-
pany’s Camp 5, about as far
from the famous Wynoochee
Oxbow as a big scowling rain
Cloud can blow in two min-
utes, twin tanks perch beside
the railroad track.
Ofihand, you’d say they
were water tanks, but log-
gers up in that neck of the
woods will chuckle and tell
you you’re wrong they’re
“rain gauges” Oxbow rain
gauges. And after squinting
over records of Oxbow rain-
fall, heaviest in the nation, it
is understandable. They need
tanks for gauges up there.
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JAN PARKER
HISTORY
AT A GLANCE
The loggers say the compa-
ny didn’t even bother to hook
up a Water line to the tanks.
It just lets them fill of their
own accord from the heavens,
which weep, drizzle, shower
and storm incessantly. Back
in 1933, it rained 185 inches
on the Oxbow, more than 15
feet of water, and any year
you care to name has shown
upward of 125 or 130 inches.
Each of the “gauges” has
an overflow pipe, which
V drains into a sort of sump.
To measure the rainfall, you
don’t bother with the tanks
you know they’re always full
so you lower a peavey on a
string into the sump. When
the peavey hits bottom, you
measure the string, add the
height of the tanks, and then
estimate the amount of water
Simpson and Schafer locomo-
tives have used, and you have
the Oxbow total. (Note: A
peavey is a long wooden pole
with a metal spike on the end
and a hook attached to the
pole above the spike, used for
separating logs.)
But again, that figure isn’t
quite accurate, for often a lo-
comotive fireman Will lift the
lid of the tank on the engine
tender and let the container
fill with rain. It has been
known, the loggers say, for
a fireman to stick an intake
pipe out of the cab'window
and inject water into the boil-
er right out of the air.
Other regions can’t hold a
candle to the Oxbow country
even during some of that re-
gion’s “light” showers. Train-
men, especially Irwin Jones,
the trainmaster, tell of one
“shower” when the train left
camp with a 22—car string of
logs. By the time the train hit
the mainline, water on the
hillsides was up to the brake
rods, and before they’d left
the Oxbow country all that
was showing of the train was
the locomotiverstack. Joyce
says they always carry life
preservers and figure they
We carry kerosene.
"Em—mas.»
might lose every other train
of logs if it happens to be
raining very heavy. The logs
float right off the cars, so they
have to dog ’em together and
tow them down out of the
hills.
It’s a strange country, and
so damp that the camp cook
never puts water in his cof-
fee pot. Just tosses in a can
of coffee, heats it and starts
pouring.
I Jan Parker is a re-
searcher for the Mason County
Historical Museum. She can
be reached at parkerj@hctc.
com. Membership in the Ma—
son County Historical Society
is per year. For a limited
time, new members will re-
ceive a free copy of the
“Shelton, the First Century
Plus Ten.”
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