Customer Reviews

Wood & Iverson: Loggers of Tiger Mountain

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There are a lot of great old train books and even a number of great railroad logging books (Railroads in the Woods but Ken Schmelzer's book truly stands out for a couple of reasons. First, it focuses on Tiger Mountain and the area around Hobart. If you at all enjoy hiking in the Tiger Mountain area you will love this book. It is unusual for a book like this concentrated on a single area to have this level of great photos and historic detail. Mr. Schmelzer comes through. The second distinction on this book is Mr. Schmelzer's love for trains. He tries really hard to write a historical perspective but his true love for logging railroads comes out in every sentence and paragraph.

One of my favorite parts of this book is the detailed account of the Holder Creek train wreck. I have been to the wreck site several times and wondered about the story behind it. Not only does Mr. Schmelzer provide the full story, with names, dates, and background, but detailed pictures of the train cars that now sit as tangled iron on the slopes of Tiger Mountain. The photos of the Clyde track layer and the tangled messes of train cars is worth the price of this book alone.

This book is a treasure that is going to slip into the category of great local works lost to history.