Broughton Flume

Greetings, Nelson Olmsted here. Today I want to tell you about a river which flows on a trestle. First, here's our spokesman for Pacific Power, Phil Gruber. Welcome once again to Stories of Pacific Power Land, a presentation of Pacific Power and Light, the company that has been serving the electric needs of the regions,

homes, farms and industries through more than half a century of progress and growth. Now, here's Nelson Olmsted with today's story from Pacific Power Land. When seen from the Columbia Gorge Highway, it appears to be a long, lacy structure winding along a cliff above the river.

It is the last of the lumber flumes, and it is owned and operated by the Bratton Lumber Company of Underwood, Washington, just across the Columbia from Hood River, Oregon. Don Thomas, superintendent of the firm, describes the operation this way.

Oh, you see, we think of the flume as a main artery between the two mills, a sort of a private highway between the sawmill and the plainy mill. It's 13 miles by road and only 9 miles by the flume.

We use water from the little white salmon river and it takes only 55 minutes for rough cut lumber to cover the 9 mile course. Well the Brown company's flume is not altogether free from trouble.

Its cargo of lumber sometimes jams up and requires the personal attention of the courageous flume tenders. One of them explains the troubleshooting operation like this. Well, the only way to get to the trouble spot is on a catwalk, 12 inches wide, and sometimes a hundred feet off the ground.

And when there's a lumber jam, me and my partner take a couple of picker runes, that's a sort of a combination pickaxe and hammer. And climb up on the catwalk, which for this time is a slick and a greasch skillet.