Times Are Overtaking Steam-Powered Mill

BELLFOUNTAIN, Ore. - The Hull-Oakes Lumber Co. sawmill sits in a hollow in Oregon's Coast Range, its sunbaked metal roof overshadowed by two rusting smokestacks.

By its owner's account, it belongs to another time.

"We're so ancient and old-fashioned, we've become newsworthy," says Ralph Hull.

As far as Hull knows, his mill at the end of a winding road about 20 miles southwest of Corvallis is the only one in Oregon that still runs on steam.

Two sawdust-burning boilers, one under each smokestack, power three steam engines and a noisy network of belts, pulleys and flywheels.

The mill's saws first bit into an Oregon Douglas fir in 1939, when Hull was in his 20s. Now 80, Hull fears sagging markets and tough competition for ever-smaller logs have doomed his company, which still bears the name of onetime partner Chester Oaks.

The mill now has enough raw logs to last a few months, although it has bumped along with such thin margins for about two years.

Hull-Oakes specializes in big beams, such as the 14-by-14-inch timbers it shipped to California to shore up an Oakland overpass after a 1989 earthquake.

"We have an old-fashioned mill," Hull says. "It's slow. It's made for big timber. We like an old-growth log - from 16 inches to 60 inches across."

When Hull was growing up on a ranch three or four miles from the mill, the supply of those trees seemed endless.

No one was worried about spotted owls or the loss of biological diversity.

Hull blames environmentalists for blocking sales of remaining old-growth trees from federal lands, which supply 85 percent of the mill's timber.

The mill can handle smaller, second-growth logs, but not with the laser-guided efficiency of modern plants.

Head sawyer Phil Kundert uses hand signals above the din to tell ratchet-setter James Unquera how to guide each log into the main saw blade.

"This is the way they did it in 1900," says sales manager Wayne Giesy, the company's unofficial tour guide.

Hull-Oakes shuns computers, a mainstay in newer mills.

"Our people have it right here," says Giesy, 72, tapping the side of his head with his forefinger.

Hull-Oakes employs about 80 people - 50 in the mill and shop and about 30 loggers, truck drivers and other woods workers.

Ralph Kundert, the head sawyer's father, has had steady work here for most of the past 50 years. He gets help in changing the mill's saw blades from another son, Brad, who doubts that his job will last more than another few years.

Brad Kundert figures that Hull-Oakes eventually will run out of the big Oregon logs that have sustained it for more than 50 years.

And then the sharp-toothed saws, the aging boilers and the quaint steam engines will fall silent.