When Northwest Florida's "limitless" cypress timberlands had been trimmed to a few scattered patches of trees, lumbermen plunged eagerly into the depths of the dank and savage Everglades. This was an optimistic move for previous attempts to reach the Big Cypress Swamp had bogged down. In 1943, operating out of this camp town of the gulf-coast edge of the Everglades, laborers hacked and bulldozed through swamp and mosquitoes to heave the beginning of a log railroad into the belly of the "Big Swamp". Less than a year later, the first giant cypress fell to the mud at it's base. Twice a week, 40 moaning rail cars haul cypress to the sprawling mill at Perry, Fla. There, cut open and sliced, the logs are ready for the towering trimming machine, the caressing hand of the grader and the final digestion of "airing out" in the mill's open yards. In 30 years, Florida's new, disfigured Big Cypress Swamp will be a stubble of jagged stumps. Then, millmen think hopefully of the unsurveyed jungle in the deepest part of the steaming Everglades. Here, a load of logs travels along its 450-mile trail, the world's longest overland lumber haul, toward the Lee Tidewater Cypress Co. mill in Perry.
When Northwest Floridas "limitless" cypress timberlands had been trimmed to a few scattered patches of trees, lumbermen plunged eagerly into the depths of the dank and savage Everglades. This was an optimistic move for previous attempts to reach the Big Cypress Swamp had bogged down. In 1943, operating out of this camp town of the gulf-coast edge of the Everglades, laborers hacked and bulldozed through swamp and mosquitoes to heave the beginning of a log railroad into the belly of the "Big Swamp". Less than a year later, the first giant cypress fell to the mud at its base. Twice a week, 40 moaning rail cars haul cypress to the sprawling mill at Perry, Fla. There, cut open and sliced, the logs are ready for the towering trimming machine, the caressing hand of the grader and the final digestion of "airing out" in the mills open yards. In 30 years, Floridas new, disfigured Big Cypress Swamp will be a stubble of jagged stumps. Then, millmen think hopefully of the unsurveyed jungle in the deepest part of the steaming Everglades. Here, a load of logs travels along its 450-mile trail, the worlds longest overland lumber haul, toward the Lee Tidewater Cypress Co. mill in Perry.
When Northwest Florida's "limitless" cypress timberlands had been trimmed to a few scattered patches of trees, lumbermen plunged eagerly into the depths of the dank and savage Everglades. This was an optimistic move for previous attempts to reach the Big Cypress Swamp had bogged down. In 1943, operating out of this camp town of the gulf-coast edge of the Everglades, laborers hacked and bulldozed through swamp and mosquitoes to heave the beginning of a log railroad into the belly of the "Big Swamp". Less than a year later, the first giant cypress fell to the mud at it's base. Twice a week, 40 moaning rail cars haul cypress to the sprawling mill at Perry, Fla. There, cut open and sliced, the logs are ready for the towering trimming machine, the caressing hand of the grader and the final digestion of "airing out" in the mill's open yards. In 30 years, Florida's new, disfigured Big Cypress Swamp will be a stubble of jagged stumps. Then, millmen think hopefully of the unsurveyed jungle in the deepest part of the steaming Everglades. Here, a load of logs travels along its 450-mile trail, the world's longest overland lumber haul, toward the Lee Tidewater Cypress Co. mill in Perry.
Description:
[Information from item housing] Logging: Wire Service
