Radio Script #75
Little Talks On Common Things
September 17, 1950
Here we are again, beginning another season of these talks on common things, that have somehow, unintentionally but irresistibly, become talks on old-time things. We make no promises about the content of this season’s talks. Just as we have done in the past, we shall let you listeners pretty much decide. It is you who have made :the continuance of these programs possible.
It is you who have furnished material, corrected our mistakes, given us valuable pointers. We are grateful to you, and both your broadcaster and the Keyes Fibre Company want this to continue to be your program, not ours. You hear quite enough about war on the newscasts and from the commentators.
Yet on this program we cannot ignore it altogether. Of all common things, what a tragedy it is that one of the commonest is war. It is now so common that we can’t even wait for a new generation, but the same boys must twice endure the horrors of modern combat. Every sensible person knows there ought to be some way to avoid this savagery. We cannot believe that the common people of Russia want war any more than do the common people of America. Yet the governments of nations, blind leaders of the blind, keep on killing not merely boys in uniform, but women and children behind the lines. In our time no war, however necessary and however provoked, is good. When will we finally get it into our heads that war itself is evil that not the immediate enemy alone needs to be conquered, but the institution of war itself.
What a mad world this is! Only a few years ago we were loudly praising our Russian allies who fought so bravely at Stalingrad. And how we hated the inhuman brutality of the savage little yellow men of Japan. That was less than ten years ago. Now look at us. As we approach a third world war, see whom we number among our allies: Japan and Spain. Those we called savage little yellow men have suddenly become good boys, and our great democracy makes a diplomatic bed-fellow out of the fascist dictatorship of Franco’s Spain.
If any of you understand all this, I wish you would tell me about it. Is there no such thing as consistency in government? Does democracy mean one thing in 1940 and something else in 1950? Frankly, I don’t know. What I do know is that our boys are dying on the battlefield, and I hope with all my heart that God will show us a way to stop that slaughter soon.
Having gotten that off our chest, let’s get back to some of the things we were talking about last spring. You will perhaps recall that one of our last programs referred to that unique railroad, built far in the wilderness of Maine’s northern lakes — a railroad that few Maine people have ever seen. We asked for more information about it, and listeners have kindly responded.
Maurice Coughlin of Oakland has loaned us a copy of the Northern for November, 1926. That is the magazine published by the Social Service Division of the Great Northern Paper Company. In the issue of November, 1926 the leading article is entitled, “Another Advance Step in Woods Transportation. The Great Northern Paper Company Builds a Railroad from Eagle Lake to Chesuncook Lake.
This article describes how the road was built and names many men who had a leading part in its construction. It gives due credit to that modern Paul Bunyan of the Maine and Canadian woods, Edward LaCroix. But the article fails to answer the question I asked last spring; namely, how did they get those heavy locomotives in from the regular rail head to the lakes? All we are told is (and I quote): “All of the material for the ChesutAcook end of the road arrived at Greenville and its conveyance from that point to the terminal was a job in itself. On the road special equipment for handling it was sometimes needed, as for instance the large eight-wheel trailer which was used to move the locomotive.” That doesn’t tell us very much.
NOW, thanks to one of our Waterville listeners, Raymond Vigue of Water street, we have not only the answer to how they moved the locomotives, but many other details not included in the magazine article.
Mr. Vigue shows that an important factor in the story of this unique railroad is the private highway leading from the Canadian boundary at Lac Frontiere to Churchill Dam, or to what is more correctly called Churchill Depot Camp. That road, extending 45 miles through the Maine wilderness, is familiar to many Maine fishermen and to others who have taken the famous Allagash trip. I have never been over the road, but I came very near traveling it in 1941. My son was then, for the fourth time, taking the Allagash trip with a single companion, who was a good canoeist, but who had no experience with Maine waters. As usual my son planned to start the trip at Caucmogomac Lake, make the long carry into Allagash Lake, down the stream into Chamberlain Lake, through Indian Pond into Eagle Lake, then through Churchill Lake into the Allagash.
Do you remember how dry it was in 1941? Every Maine lake revealed rocks and shallows never before seen. Could these two canoeists get beyond the dam at Churchill Lake? Was there enough water to get them on down the Allagash? If there was, I would meet them at Fort Kent. If not, I must make the 200 mile drive to Lac Frontiere, obtain the necessary permit to use the private road, then travel those long, lonesome 45 miles to Churchill Dam.
Believe me, that summer I had reason to be grateful to Patrolman Thibodeau of the Waterville police. I was worried lest a message sent me by my son should fail to reach me, and that I should arrive at Fort Kent only to find that I must now travel nearly 500 miles to get to Churchill Dam.
Patrolman Thibodeau solved my problem. He asked me to come to his house when he was off duty, and from there he called his brother, who was fire warden at Churchill Dam. What a relief when the brother said: “Those two boys went through day before yesterday. By this time they are half way down the Allagash.” So I drove to Fort Kent where those two boys met me on the dot.
I have told this incident at length, in diversion from our main story about the railroad, in order that you may comprehend the size of the Maine Wilderness, and the immense distances that must be traveled to reach points not far apart, as the crow flies.
What started us off on this diversion was the 45 mile road from Lac Frontiere to Churchill Dam. The first sixteen miles of that road, to the point where it crosses the st. John River, were built in 1924, and during the the next two years the remaining 29 miles were completed.
The man whom we have called the Paul Bunyan of the Maine woods, Edward Lacroix, is of course a Canadian citizen, from St. George, Quebec. In the early 1920’s Mr. Lacroix owned an extensive tract of timberland in Aroostook and Piscataquis Counties. So extensive was this tract that it covered many entire townships. It was in what is commonly called the Allagash Country, one of the wildest and most remote, uninhabited sections of the whole United states. It was covered with forests of virgin spruce and pine.
When Mr. Lacroix started lumbering in this region he confronted a major problem. How would he get the long logs and pulpwood from the Allagash-St. John watershed to waters which emptied the other way into the Penobscot? Lacroix and his associates hit upon a private railway system, isolated and completely disconnected from any regular railroad. The main line was 16 miles long, connecting Eagle and Chesuncook Lakes. Construction was started in 1926 and finished in the fall of 1928. That was before the day of the gigantic, modern bulldozer, and the clearing, grading, and rail laying was all done by men and teams. Many trestles had to be built, the longest being a wooden structure of 1,700 feet across the tip of Chamberlain Lake. In addition to its four rock piers, its supports were huge spruce logs, driven into the mud of the lake bottom. Mr. Vigue tells us that tree-length logs with butt diameter of nearly two feet were driven sometimes as deep as 40 feet before solid bottom was reached. The cross ties and supporting beams were axe-hewn timbers cut near by.
Rolling stock, says Mr. Vigue, consisted of four locomotives, all of which were converted from coal to fuel oil. Remember this was in 1928, long before the coming of the Diesels or any general use of oil-burning engines.
Fire from locomotive sparks was a real hazard, and everything possible had to be done to prevent it. So, ‘far ahead of his time, Mr. Lacroix converted the locomotive coal tenders to fuel oil tanks. The two main-line locomotives weighed 75 tons and 100 tons. The larger had formerly been the property of the New York Central, and the smaller came from the Quebec Central. The other two engines were much smaller about 20 tons each — and were powered by gasoline engines. They were used only as switching engines, one located at each end of the mainline.
A total of 45 pulpwood cars of standard size transported the 4-foot pulpwood. They were equipped with rack bodies, the sides of which swung open at the bottom to speed up unloading.
Well, it’s about time we answered that question of how this heavy rolling stock, especially the locomotives, was brought in to the terminal. Remember the nearest regular line railroad was fifty miles away. Here is Mr. Vigue’s explanation.
The locomotives and cars were dismantled at Lac Frontiere, and were reassembled at the new rail head at Eagle Lake. Special sleds, designed for heavy loads, were built to carry the truck Wheels, frames, boilers, and tenders, as well as the many tons of steel rails.
How were these sleds hauled? Without the genius of a Waterville inventor the job could not have been done. The Lombard log-hauler provided the indispensable traction. It was those Lombard tractors that hauled the sled trains carrying the dismantled parts of Mr. Lacroix’s locomotives.
Because the hauling was done in winter, the St. John could be crossed on the ice. But sometimes the heavy loads broke through, causing damage and loss. But it was not until 1931, three years after his railroad had been completed, that Mr. Lacroix bought the steel bridge Which spanned the Chaudiere at St. George, Quebec, moved it in small sections to the st. John, and there reassembled it to connect the two sections of his highway from Lac Frontiere to Churchill Dam. That bridge, 400 feet long and 9 feet wide, standing fifty feet above the water still does service today.
Getting in the steel rails was no small job of itself. There were 6,500 of them, 30 feet long and weighing 1,800 pounds a piece. That little road was a part of the gigantic operations carried on by Mr. Lacroix in the Allagash region during the decade before the Second World War.
At one time 4,000 men were on his payroll in the Churchill-Chesuncook area, and he used 780 horses in his peak season of 1929. Fifty cooks prepared food in the widely scattered camps. Tote teams hauled supplies day and night, several of them hauling only fodder for the horses. Butter, eggs, pork, beans, and other foods were bought in carload lots at Chicago and shipped direct to Lac Frontiere.
Although pulpwood was the principal product, and most of it went over the new railroad into Penobscot waters, the long log operations were still among the largest in the country. The annual average of long logs was 25 million feet, and in one year the cut exceeded 40 million feet. These all went down the AllagaSh and St. John Rivers to the Lacroix mills at Keegan, Maine, over 200 miles away. In twelve years the total drive from the Allagash forest to Keegan was over 2! billion feet.
Such is the story — or rather only part of the story — of the unique railroad in the Maine wilderness. And I know of no better way to close the narrative than to tell of Mr. Lacroix’s tribute to a Waterville man. Mr. Lacroix has often said that without the Lombard Traction Engine, his railroad could not have been- built. “It never occurred to me that the project was feasible”, he said, “until I saw those huge tractors prove their worth under practically impossible conditions.”
Year: 1950