Beauty of the Mountains
"The Uinta Mountains," wrote William Ashley in 1825, "is in many places fertile and closely timbered with pine, cedar, quaking-asp, and a dwarfish growth of oak; a great number of beautiful streams issue from them on each side, running through fertile valleys richly clothed with grass."
Logging in Uinta
When the transcontinental railroad was built through Wyoming and into Echo Canyon from 1867 through 1869, tens of thousands of wooden ties were cut from the thickly timbered Uinta Mountains.
In 1872, the Hilliard Flume and Lumber Company began construction of a large v-shaped flume which ran 30 miles from Gold Hill, along Hayden's Fork, to the town of Hilliard. The flume was 16 feet above ground, and the logs ran at 15 miles per hour. Today there is little left of Mill City, which was at the head of the flume, where there were once bunkhouses for 500 men, company store and sawmill.
The Upper Weber Canyon was a main route for Indians from Wyoming, across the Kamas Valley and on to Utah Lake. Loggers cut wood for ties, lumber, and cord wood. The ties were floated down the Weber River and taken out at Wanship.
