In a west coast city, firewood would have been a major need. Every home and store would need heat. Every business would need fuel, from blacksmiths to breweries. Restaurants would need it to cook food. In a city of 20,000-50,000, that’s a lot of wood.
Up through WWII there were a large number of peddlars who came around urban neighborhoods with wagons (later cars)selling everything from ice to pots and pans and picking up scrap that could be reclaimed. Most heating and cooking was done by coal as the wood would have been too risky due to flue fires. What wood was used would have been delivered by peddlars for people without the means to transport it themselves. IIRC peat was also used as a fuel where available in urban environments but I doubt wood was used much where there wasn’t a convenient source (as in a wooded area) nearby. J.R.
Hmmm. In the late 19th century, there was a small operating coal mine in the northern Sierras, but that was about it. It seems too expensive to bring all that coal in from the east–even the railroads were wood fueled.
You need a guano mine, Chip. Course, that may not actually supply enough fuel for that size town but it sure would help.
Your metropolis is based in the Sierras. Wouldn’t (or wooden) logs be a viable source of fuel in a region like that? The other question is: How many towns were actually of that size and capacity in the 1880s? Seems a bit large for a mountainous and wooded region like the Sierras. You’d inevitably need to be supplied by cargo ship and wagons via the Pacific to maintain a town of that size and capacity. Gold panning was probably a dying art by that time and era.
Just thinking out loud…
Tom
Hey, it’s my railroad. [:D]
Tom, your right. There was no city called Train City in the Sierras. However, there were cities just down the road like Stockton, Fresno, Sacramento, etc. Train City is loosely based on these. Those towns would have had it rougher as there weren’t as many wooded areas nearby. I’m imaginging wood coming in from barges from the lumber industry which was in full swing by this time. But I don’t know.
Other than staying true Southern Pacific in 1885 right after signing the lease with the Central Pacific, and staying true to 1885 technolgy, industry, and early California commerce, the Rock Ridge and Train City bears little resemblance to reality. As far as I know, the red-stratified rock formations I deplicted exsist nowhere in a heavy oak forest–in California or anywhere else. It is pure fantasy I’m afraid.
As a point of reference, the population of Virginia City NV in the 1870’s was about 30,000. The railroad and the mines used wood for fuel. Square set timbers were also used to support the mine tunnels. V&T locomotives were all woodburners until about the turn of the century. There were extensive wood yards in Carson City.
I know several families still using wood for heating their homes
CHUCK
Chip, all too often and tragically, many 1885 cities became firewood, courtesy of the likes of Mrs. Murphy’s cow…
Now that would be a heck of a model![swg]
One, you might try to find a book such as
http://www.fwbookstore.com/product/53/23
Two, any tree near a “boom” town of that size would be on the “endangered species list”. With the need for building supplies, mining supplies (props), and fire wood, the hills would be striped bare. The Old Dog suspects that the firewood would be shipped in probably by rail to local wood lots that would sell it at retail. Also note that since wood was the standard packing material of the era, old crates and packing cases would supply some firewood. Some firewood might be generated as by-products of logging (slash wood) and milling (log slabs) operations along the RR.
Three, if the Old Dog remembers correctly, the local blacksmith would need coal for his forge. Wood wouldn’t burn hot enough. It is unknown if charcoal could be used.
Have fun
Chip,
Just west of Austin, Texas, until after WWII there was a thriving business in making charcoal out of cedar and oak. About 100 miles east of Austin, lignite coal began being mined about 1890, yet the Santa Fe Railroad continued to use wood for the engines up until abt 1910 and their tracks ran right thru the coal mining area.
Just food for thought.
John T.
And as was pointed out, much of the original forest in the vicinity of Lake Tahoe was cut to supply Virginia City. I would venture a guess that a good part of the V&T’s traffic was hauling lumber to support the mining operations and towns.
Chip, you are absolutely right, in the 2nd half of the 19th Century the demand for wood in Southern California and the Central Valley spurred a huge industry in Northern California supplying the need. Nearly every possible cove with a creek or river feeding it along the coast north of San Francisco supported a mill and a dog hole schooner loading facility. There was enough demand to support logging operations that over a dozen railroads were built just to supply logs to the mills that in turn supplied San Francisco and San Diego.
And this doesn’t count all the Sierra foothills logging operations such as the famous Westside Logging Co. and Sierra Ry.
Around 1900, logging started booming in coastal Oregon and Washington as well.
Oregon did have mineable coal deposits, so both fuels were used there.
Wood was very cheap in comparison to metal or petroleum products once north of San Francisco. Wood trestles and no tie plates or creosote were the normal practice. Rail and wire cable were re-used as much as possible. River rock ballast was used on only the very wettest parts of the logging railroad roadbeds.
And, yes, fires were all too common.
It was a different way of life. Today, it’s hard to understand because of all the inter-relationships between existing technology
So true, for example, in 1900 the street lamps and the lights for the better homes would have probably been fueled with manufactured gas distilled from “fat” coal. The entire manufactured gas industry is mostly gone today.
Also gone is the chemical wood industry. They distilled wood into charcoal, but the chemical by products were a major factor.
http://www.smethporthistory.org/crosby/wood.htm
Have fun
Maybe this will help, Chip.
In the great blizzard of 1901 or 1903 or some very early year last century, many of the working class in New York City froze to death, or nearly did. They bought either their wood or coal from vendors daily from the money of wages paid daily.They bought their food the same way. The source of heat for warmth and cooking were one and the same. Either an open hearth like Little House on the Prarie, or in Franklin-type stove of some kind. It was only a days supply, and maybe a little left over from a warm day was all they could afford and was all they had. The wood was brought in by wagons from outposts,and maybe the Erie canal; or for coal, the train yard coal merchant.That year with something like 7-8 feet of snow in 2 days, then some more. wagons could cut through the snow, but no so much horses or humans. (Not unlike what Upper Upstate NY is getting right now!!)
We must keep in mind also that: while we are so accustomed to having every cubic square inch of any given room of any size all at the same tempertature, that was not the case in those times. They were happy to sit near the heart or stove for warmth, while a glass of water sitting on a windowsill or outside wall table might be frozen. They had no idea what we have now. They also wore far more layers of clothing than we do.
The information contained herein is derived from a History Channel show I’ve seen. I watch so many of them, I am not sure which one! I think it was “great disasters” or something.
I assume much of the above would have some relevence to out west too.
as a working blacksmith I can assure you that charcoal is actually a better forge fuel than most coals, many smelters and blast furnaces also used charcoal for fuel into the 1920s, many logging operations had charcoaling pits nearby, which used limbs and anything unsuitable for making planks or props
One of the chief functions of the Bodie and Benton Railroad (1881-1917) in east-central California was to haul cord wood from Mono Mills to the Bodie mines to fuel the boilers there. (The other purpose was to haul lumber underground mine construction.) The railroad never reached Benton to connect with the Carson & California Railroad running from Mound House, Nevada to Keeler, California, which the Southern Pacific railroad purchased shortly before the gold discoveries in Goldfield and Tonopah, Nevada.
Mark
Chip,
I have looked at old photos from the late 1800’s from the Philadelphia area where I was born and arround Houston where I now live. In the back yards are huge piles of firewood, neatly stacked, but a heck of a pile by any measure. Sometimes they are in alleys as well.
Later coal and coal oil would be used as wood was a hazard and a pain. I think the railroad would be used to bring in the firewood from afar.
Hi, Chip.
The coastal cities (San Francisco, the Bay area, Monterey, Los Angeles and San Diego) did get their wood by water, but the inland areas had their supply delivered from uphill. In one instance, there was a 58 mile flume running from what is now Yosemite National Park to Merced. On the other route to Yosemite, the Yosemite Valley Railroad was famous for carrying passengers to the park but actually made its living hauling logs. Virtually every valley had either a log-hauling rail route or a flume.
In 1885, logging was going full blast and the forests seemed destined to last forever. In most places, the forests lasted well into the mid 20th century.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - including a forest railway)
Judging by all the neat stacks of firewood I observed last year, wood is commonly and often burned at homes in Switzerland (a delightful country). I thought Europeans were progressive, being so much more concerned about pollution and global warming than Americans. But then, Switzerland didn’t give women the vote until the latter part of the 20th century, and it hasn’t believed in distinguishing between friend and foe.
Mark
By 1885 there were two transcontinental railroad lines running freight back and forth, so coal certainly isn’t out of the question as a fuel for homes, industries, etcetera. Cities the size of Sacramento had coal dealers, coal gas generating plants, etcetera, even though there wasn’t much coal on this coast. If there is a logging operation anywhere nearby, then gons full of scrap wood become a firewood source. But keep in mind that the typical heating source for a home was a single wood stove, and lots of blankets: people burned a lot less fuel than they do now.
And remember that there was also oil, in the form of kerosene at first–there was a volatile waste product called “gasoline” which was mostly disposed of until some weirdo decided to try to use it to fuel a motor.
In addition to firewood as we know it, a lot of homes in the Northwest used sawdust for heating. Gravity furnaces. The coarse sawdust used was a bi-product of the sawmills in the area. I still remember as a kid loading the furnace hopper, a full load would last about 8 to 10 hours and comfortably heat a two story home. Of course a lot of homes also used coal for the heating and cooking.