(Photo courtesy Washington State Digital Archives)

Washington’s timber industry is a colorful part of our pioneer heritage, with logging still employing thousands of people in the woods or in mills,  or delivering logs to mills or ports.

In the days before trucks handled the task, logging railroads were used to move the fallen trees from forests to lumber mills and other destination points. An example is shown in the photo above, as a train engine stands by as a topper climbs a tall, limbless tree near Port Townsend. For the topper, it must’ve been an amazing view from so high, but also dangerous work.

The photo, taken sometime before 1920, is found in the Digital Archives’ State Library Photograph Collection, 1851-1920.

If you want to learn more about the history of logging railroads in Washington, the State Library has an episode on DVD about it from KOMO-TV’s popular outdoors show “Exploration Northwest” (1960-81), written and narrated by Don McCune. In fact, the State Library has a collection of about 100 Exploration Northwest episodes on 32 DVDs, which is a quarter of the show’s 400 episodes overall.