Three related issues have faced the timber industry, affecting Sandpoint and the surrounding area: a declining supply of logs, increasing government regulations, and changing technology and markets.
Sandpoint has been a center for the cedar pole industry since the early 1900s. Trucks hauled cedars from throughout the Pend Oreille region to Sandpoint for processing. Merle Morrow, who worked for Schaffer-Hitchcock Pole Co., recalled that “in 1950, we took out pretty near 6,000 poles at Camp Nine, at the head of [Priest Lake].”
Pole cutters took only selected trees in the woods, basing their decisions on size and soundness. Merle Morrow remembered “One of them cedar makers would go up and thump on a tree [to test for soundness]. He’d just peck it with his axe and he’d tell you whether you could cut two feet off’n it or three, four feet off’n it. There was a genius when it come to that.”
