Logan House Road, Spur, Glenbrook

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NEV,3-GLENB.V,2A-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

North of U.S. 50 on the east shore of Lake Tahoe within the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, Douglas County, Nevada. The road segment extends for miles and lies at an elevation between and feet above sea level. east end-11.247100.4328850 west end-11.246520.4328960 Date(s) of Construction: Circa Engineer/Architect/Builder: Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company incorporated in in the State of Nevada, its primary stockholders being Duane L. Bliss, Yerington, D.O. Mills, and J.A. Rigby. Bliss was mad president and general manager and held the office until his death in Present Owner(s) United States Department of Agriculture, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit Forest.

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER NEV,3-GLENB.V,2A-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Logan House Spur Road along with the Logan House Road represents the transportation system developed to support the massive production achievement of the in association with the Comstock Mining era of Western Nevada. Report Prepared By; Dana E. Supernowicz, Zone Historian, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, 870 Emerald Bay Road, Suite 1, South Lake Tahoe, California Date: October LOGAN HOUSE ROAD, SPUR (FS 14N33A) HAER NO. NV-15-A (Page 2)

Description

The Logan House Spur Road is an extension of the Logan House Road which is among a series of main haul logging roads developed and utilized for over 20 years by the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company's woods operations. The road served to connect a system of secondary/ and tertiary haul roads as well as skid trails and chutes with the major wood receiving and sending station at Spooner Summit. II. ENGINEERING INFORMATION The Logan House Spur Road is a typical, narrow, winding, cut and fill logging road of minimal grade. Similar to the Logan House Road, it is not a monumental achievement in road building industrial technology, but rather an example of expedient and rapid technology employed to resource extraction. The road averages 12' in width and is .53 miles in length. III.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION Discovery of the Comstock silver lode set the stage for three decades of intensive logging in the east central Sierra Nevada. The voracious appetite of the Virginia Range mines for timbers to shore up the shafts and cordwood to fuel the steam engines quickly devoured the available timber resources adjacent to the mining district and subsequently led to the exploitation of the timber on the slopes above Lake Tahoe. Initially, timber harvest within the Lake Tahoe Basin was of small scale due to the difficulty of transportation of wood products both within the basin and to the Comstock mines In a group of business men led by Bliss and including Yerington, D.O. Mills and J.A.

Rigby incorporated the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company in response to the increasing need for timber products. The vast holdings acquired by this large company (at the height of logging in the the owned over acres of timberland) provided the economy of scale needed to efficiently harvest the timber resources within the basin. The quickly constructed a railroad to move lumber and cordwood from its mills at Glenbrook to Spooner Summit, flumes to transport products from Spooner Summit to the Carson Valley to the east, and a system of primary haul roads to move timber and cordwood from the woods to either Glenbrook or Spooner Summit.

The Logan House Spur Road is an extension of one of these primary haul roads and was used between approximately and The Logan House Spur Road is representative of one of the greatest and most destructive episodes in the history of American logging and lumber manufacturing history. Nowhere in the United States was there such a large expenditure of capital and labor to supply the huge mines, mills, and smelters of the Comstock Lode. Virtually all the merchantable timber on the east shore of Lake Tahoe had been logged off by the The Logan Hours Spur Road and LOGAN HOUSE ROAD, SPUR (FS 14N33A) HAER NO. NV-15-A (Page 3) other roads of its age and class contribute to our understanding of late nineteenth century logging and road building technology.

After the decline of the Comstock mines, the Logan House Spur Road and other Cornstock Era logging roads, with the exception of seasonal grazing, saw little use until the mid-twentieth century. Since the old logging roads have been used for off highway vehicle recreation. Tha Logan House Spur Road was no exception, and for the past forty years has been maintained as a two track recreation road. IV. PROJECT INFORMATION This documentation is being prepared to fulfill the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Units (LTBMU) obligations under a Memorandum of Agreement between the LTBMU and the Nevada State Historic Preservation Officer dated July 7, The Principle Investigator was Dana Supernowiczs. The photographer was Rudy Gillard of Fortuna California.

LOGAN HODSE SPUR RON) (FOREST SERVICE ROAD 14N33A) HAER HO. NV-15-A (PAGE 4) ENGINEER PLANS SHOWING DETAILS OF ALTERATIONS TO LOGAN HOUSE SPUR %9\ 1 fc ^ 3 si Si pS; S5. el T 8 wig 18 s. y | CO LOGAN HOUSE SPUR ROAD (FOREST SERVICE ROAD 14N33A) HAER HO. NV-15-A (PAGE 5) ENGINEER PLANS SHOWING DETAILS OF ALTERATIONS TO LOGAN HOUSE SPUR FS RD 14N33A 20-t-OO GENERAL NOTES: 1- RECONSTRUCT ROAD TO 12* MINIMUM WIDTH 2- OUTSLOPE ROAD iX CONCEPTUAL 3- CONSTRUCT OIPS WHERE INDICATED MAINTAIN EXISTING DIPS WHERE INDICATED (EXISTING FEATURES ARE DASHED SYMBOLS) NO SCALE- LOGAN HOUSE SPUR ROAD (FOREST SERVICE ROAD 14N33A) HAER NO. NV-15-A (PAGE 6) ENGINEER PLANS SHOWING DETAILS OF ALTERATIONS TO LOGAN HOUSE SPUR rw v3 9.A 3 89 &- V *^ /