The Logging Years

The logging companies came to the Star Lake area in the late 1880’s and by 1895 had built Camp 1, which consisted of a large sawmill, our Milltown - equipped with a planing mill, 84 company houses for married employees, a large boarding house for single employees, two warehouses, a large general store, a butcher shop, a schoolhouse and resident physician. By 1904, other logging companies came to Star Lake and set up 24 additional camps and by 1907 had cut down most of the trees and left just a few remnants behind. The Star Lake Mill alone took over four hundred million board feet of logs out of the Star Lake area.

In 1907, the last log, draped in an American flag, went out of Star Lake and soon after, Camp 1 was closed. The mill and all but the store closed. The employees of the mill, loggers, their families and homes were put on the train and shipped off to the next logging community and Star Lake became a ghost town overnight.