1882 - 1980
In writing the history of our sawmill industry down home and at Savanna, I have found it takes much time and effort.I tried to cover all the interesting parts and still be brief. I am sure many items of interest have been omitted. Some have been added at a later time so certain parts will be out of sequence.A brief summation: 1882 when granddad Helle first started sawing lumber they used steam powered engines. They were low powered from ten to thirty horse power. They moved from one job to another by pulling them with horses.By 1920 when I first remember dad and his sawmill, the steam engines were self propelled. Gasoline was used from the late 1920's to about the mid-50's. We used diesel power until the mid-60's when we converted to electric. Many mills still use diesel. Many used electric years before we did.Most of the mid-west sawmills are using from one hundred to two hundred horse power on the main saw today. Production has went from two to four thousand feet per day up to twenty or thirty thousand feet per day. Time does march on.Many stories have been written about the "March Of Time." We hope you enjoy the following of "Time Marches On." Sheldon Helle(To understand the dollars and cents part of this story, keep in mind inflation. What cost $1,000 in 1940 cost about $10,000 in 1980.)CHAPTER ONE
We've been in the business of sawing lumber and building pallets at Savanna for forty years but it seems important to tell of the period from 1882 to 1940. This was a span of fifty eight years of sawmilling by our family.Our grandfather and grandmother Helle were both emigrants from Germany but met and married near the Spoon River Country about fifty miles west of Peoria, Illinois.Granddad Helle was a farmer near Spoon River when he bought a small sawmill to saw the timber on his farm. The lumber was needed for farm buildings in the fast growing farm area. About ten years later his son, George Helle, our father, who was about twenty years old at the time, took over the mill full time sawing for the farm market.In 1901 George Helle married Ida Kaler. He continued the sawmill business full time for several years. They then bought a farm near by and started farming too. They sawed railroad ties and lumber. As time went on the family grew to ten sons and three daughters. The youngest, a girl, June, died in 1932 at the age of eight. Don, a brother, died in 1961 at age fifty two years old. Royle, died in 1979 at age seventy five. Verle died in August 1980 at sixty two years old.In 1930 dad discontinued farming. He started sawmilling near Kewanee, Illinois. In 1932 dad set the mill at Wyoming, IL. twenty five miles north of Peoria. At this mill we started moving the logs to the mill by trucks; one of the first mills to do so. This business was very successful for several years.About 1940 dad's health failed. War clouds were gathering. The three sons still at home, Verle, Gene, and Gail entered the services.The other help went to war related industries. The mill was closed in 1941 .Dad died in 1943 at the age of seventy. Mother died in Savanna at the age of ninety three in 1971.The sawmill business generally made money during the depression years. There was always a market for hardwood lumber.We were using horses to skid logs but by the mid-30's we had converted to caterpillar tractors. Trucks were also becoming a way of life. In 1980 our fleet of trucks in Savanna can travel more than two thousand miles some days.Several of the brothers and brothers-in-law entered the business of sawing hardwood lumber. The Helle family in general, has made history in the lumber business in Illinois. At one time there were about seven mills running in the Peoria-Galesburg area. We have had sawmills at Keosauqua, DeWitt and Dubuque, Iowa.Most of these sawmills need from four to ten people to keep them efficient. some large producers employ up to twenty people in the woods cutting and skidding logs as well as the sawmill crew.As of January 1979, Wood Products, Inc. of Savanna, IL. employed about fifty five people. We do about one and one half million dollars worth of business per year. All the company stock is owned by the Helle family of Savanna.Slipping back into time, by 1940 in the state of Illinois their were about 1,200 small sawmills. Each mill was moved from timber to timber. Often families moved with the mills. They were steam powered but by the 1920's they began to convert to oil powered tractors. (We were still using horses to skid the logs.) By 1928 the writer was working full time at the age of fourteen skidding logs with horses.Like all American industries we have seen changes in the sawmill industry these past forty years. We have about one hundred active sawmills left in Illinois. Most of these are highly automated.By the 1930's during the "Great Depression" jobs for the young were not to be found. We were working for dad in the sawmill.The railroad would buy railroad ties. Jim Hammer of Geneseo, IL. bought and sold these ties. He would pay cash and sometimes advance money on future deliveries.Prices were very low as were the wages but with long hours of hard manual labor, plus doing our own repairs (sometimes through most of the night) we made money. We were professionals on maintenance. This kept the machines running.Wyoming, IL., a small community of 1400 friendly people is located twenty five miles north of Peoria. This community and the depression years of the '30s played a very important part in our lives and our business. Don, Walter, Gail, Charlotte, and myself were all married while living at Wyoming. All but Walters wife were from the Wyoming area. All marriages have stood the test of time except Don's first marriage.I will take you back nearly fifty years to 1931. On June 8th dad, mother, and seven children ranging in age from seven to twenty years, moved into a small rented house in the north end of town. We still had a team of horses and wagon but no truck after having just moved off the farm. Dad was out of money and had taken a job sawing lumber for a druggist, Leo Finigan, who had a farm with some timber land.Dad had a steam engine for power. This machine used slab wood for fuel. The timber was ten miles north of Wyoming.Dad, Walter, Verle, Gene, and myself cut logs and used the horses to drag them to the sawmill. Then we would saw them into lumber. Gail was still too young at this time for this type of work.Mr. Finigan paid us for all the lumber each Saturday. When this job was completed the mill was moved three miles west of Wyoming for one year. Then we moved it into town on about one acre of land. The last money Mr. Finigan owed us was received by taking merchandise from the store as he too had run out of money. By this time Gail was old enough to help.On August 13,1932 Walter married Alice Williams of Tampico, IL. Walter and Don Walton, a brother-in-law, worked together near Peoria for one year sawing railroad ties. Then Walter was at Princeville, II. and Delbert helped on this job. They sawed lumber for the farm market. Walter and I did one small job south of Kewanee in 1934 and 1935. We sawed railroad ties plus lumber for the farm market.On May 11, 1935 I married Hazel Hendrick of Wyoming. Her cute freckles and small size charmed me. She lived on a farm. Two of her brothers still live in and near Wyoming. The other brother lives here at SavannaaCHAPTER TWO
Delbert, Walter, and I formed a partnership in July 1935. We all moved to Galena, IL. We started a job south of town on the Mississippi River bottoms. Times were rough and we had a mighty lean year. Walter and Alice's first born, a son, was born at Galena.The river bottoms were a new experience for high land loggers. We had a terrible winter. The Mississippi River never stayed the same. We were snowed in for three weeks. The only way out was by caterpillar tractor or walk. Three men walked about five miles to Bellevue, Iowa. We crossed the river on the ice. The snow was four feet deep on the level. The winter of 1935 and 1936 is still one of the two worst winters in recorded history.Our first born, Lyle arrived on March 15, 1936 at a Peoria hospital. We moved to Abington, IL. at that time. Delbert started a job west of Peoria where he operated a sawmill for thirty years. He invented a log-turner and allied sawmills and machinery. This equipment is used worldwide today. Walter and I stayed in the Abington-Galesburg area for two years, 1936 and '37. We then decided to move back to the Mississippi River bottoms.After two years experience and two years to ponder what went wrong in 1935 and '36, we were better equipped and more experienced to try it again. This time we logged very heavy during the winter then sawed during the summer. This proved to be very successful. If we needed more logs we would log the hills in the summer. We let the river have its mud and mosquitoes. In 1939, the Army engineers took over the river bottoms and closed all logging.In January 1940 we moved to Dubuque, IA and sawed railroad ties for nine months for the Webster Lumber Co. We sawed 29,000 ties. We gained experience on high-speed sawing. We did this by contract. Webster Lumber Co, did the logging.Our two older children had grown to near school age. Alice and Hazel, being very persuasive, convinced us to settle in a permanent location so our children could receive a better education. The days of the portable sawmill were coming to an end.CHAPTER THREE "Forty Years At Savanna"
We decided to set the mill up permanently and haul logs to the mill. On October 7,1940, we moved to Savanna, IL. We kept three employees plus the two of us. The first year our sales totaled $8,500 but we did show a small profit.During World War II we worked long hard hours as most Americans did. We would cut logs then skid them out to the truck, then haul them to the Savanna mill. We'd go have supper, then with the help of railroad employees, called moonlighters, we would saw several hours after supper, then back to the timber again the next morningWe worked between seventy and ninety hours per week. It was very hard work, carrying slabs and lumber by hand. There was no electric or hydraulic power back then. (Not on our saw mill anyway.) The lumber was used for shipping crates for war materials and machinery. Lumber sawed at the Savanna mill was shipped to all parts of the free world.Most of the crates went for gasoline powered electric generating plants. These plants were used for field hospitals and other military installations.After World War 2 the demand for lumber had increased immensely. We were sawing construction timbers and blocking lumber for steel mills, plus lumber for corn cribs and barns or general farm repairs.By 1945 we had built a new wood frame sawmill building. It had a wood floor which later was the cause of a fire which destroyed the building and it's contents. We had also put in a new sawmill.This fire on April 1, 1946 was started by one of our employees, Frank Menert, using a cutting torch on a truck spring. The sparks went under the wood floor setting the fire. There was a high wind so it only took thirty or forty minutes to burn . This building was 24x120 feet; a $15,000 loss with a $4,000 insurance policy.My daughter, Lorraine, was two days old at the time of the fire. I was at he hospital visiting her and her mother. If I had stayed at the sawmill I would have used the cutting torch myself, therefore, the mill would not have burned as I, being a non-drinker was sober on that Monday morning.I have always accused this daughter of being the $10,000 baby, but I guess she was worth it, (I think.) Anyway, she and her mother do my typing and I shudder to think what my writing would look like without their corrections.My other daughter, Louise is also a critic. Harley, my son, being a man is a little more tolerant. He overlooks my mistakes most of the time anyway.At the time of this writing, September 5,1979, (in the middle of the night) my daughter, Lorraine is having a baby of her own. Anyhow, after the fire things looked impossible. Walt went home to ponder our situation. I think I did about the same. We came up with a plan.A man may be happy without a fortune, But he can never be happy without a friend.This seems about the right place to insert a poem about two frogs. I remember it well. We were both like the frog that was saved.
Just Keep Paddling
Two frogs fell into a bucket of cream,
And paddled to keep afloat,
But one soon tired and sank to rest,
With a gurgling sigh in his throat.
The other paddled away all night,
And not a croak did he utter,
And with the coming of the morning light, He rode on an island of butter.
The flies came thick to his island home, And made him a breakfast snappy,
The milkmaid shrieked and upset the pail, And froggy hopped away happy.
A moral that a man finds in this rhyme, And hastens at once to apply,
Success will come in the most difficult way. If we paddle and never say die!
A close and true friend, a farmer, Clarence Doty, asked for volunteers to help rebuild the mill. Help came aplenty! We had about twenty volunteers. We poured cement this time instead of the wood floor. Clarence had told us to use the insurance money plus what we could borrow from the bank. Then he would loan us the balance of what we needed. This he did do, about $9,000. Twenty one days later we started sawing with a used saw mill. We had worked day and night (even Sunday), perhaps breaking all records for setting up a mill of this size that soon after a fire. P.S. We put on the roof later! We were so grateful for the friends and neighbors we had, especially Clarence Doty.By 1952 we were employing between fifteen and twenty people. We had replaced most of the older machinery with new and more modern equipment. business looked good.Our modernizing program started back in 1939 with the purchase of a new Allis Chalmers gasoline power unit. This was used to power the sawmill. A new era had begun. The power unit (engine) was the only thing of value saved from the 1946 fire.In 1941 we put a new power winch on our boom truck for skidding logs. In 1942 we designed a new style boom which could be raised in a high position for loading logs on the truck and also lower for skidding logs in the woods. It was our own creation which reduced our loading time from one or two hours to about fifteen minutes. It was a new day for logging in our area. This method was used for about fifteen years. This was also a more dangerous era.