Forest historian shares collection of logging artifacts

There’s a story behind every photograph in Ronald Buentemeier’s rare collection of images from the early days of logging the Flathead Valley. He knows most of the tales from memory, down to the exact date and place on a map.

From his home office above his workshop off Dillon Road, Buentemeier points to one photograph that shows a flume from the 1920s and 30s that was used to send logs to the Empire Lumber Company mill at the current day junction of Truman Creek and Mount Creek.

“That flume was a couple miles long,” he said. “It was all made from lumber.”

One of his photos shows the flume and log deck and has a note that 2 million board feet of lumber are in the deck.

“Can you imagine loading all of that?” he says in awe of the manpower required before machinery.

Buentemeier points to another photo of the original State Lumber Company mill near the Whitefish River on Hodgson Road. Logs were cut from along the river and around Whitefish Lake, then floated downstream to the mill.

“They operated there until 1918 until they moved to the Half Moon site,” he said.

The name changed to F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Company in 1933 after claims were made that State Lumber’s locomotive used to haul logs from Haskill Basin had started a 1929 wildfire that torched 100,000 acres in four days. Buentemeier says it’s unlikely the engine started the blaze, but that back in those days companies would often change names to avoid bad publicity.

Buentemeier enjoys sharing his knowledge about the history of the local timber industry, and is often asked to speak for various groups in the valley. He will give a presentation at the Whitefish Community Center on Thursday, April 7 at 12:30 p.m. His talk will focus on the history of F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Company and the collaboration with the Great Northern railroad.

Buentemeier himself has a long history with the local timber trade. Born in Deer River, Minnesota, he came to the valley in the mid-1940s as a young boy and grew up around the local logging camps and mills. He attended school in Columbia Falls, graduating in 1959. He remembers as a teenager driving Jeeps in the backwoods around Haskill Basin and Trumble Creek.

He went on to study forestry at the University of Montana in Missoula. He began working for F. H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co. in 1964 as a forest engineer and ended his career in 2007 as vice president of the company.

Buentemeier proudly reflects on the work of Stoltze during his time with the company. He recalls the first time he met John R. Stoltze in 1964.

“He was out visiting the company lands,” Buentemeier said. “There was a need for doing some management. We rode around and I showed him some things. Then back at the mill I asked him what he’d like me to do. He thought about it for a bit, then turned to me and said, ‘Just manage it as if you owned it.’ So that’s what we did.”

He says most people don’t realize that the forest around Haskill has been harvested three to four times since Stoltze began managing the land.

“People would be very surprised if they went for a walk in the woods and looked at the stumps,” he said.

“The type of management up there is all due to Stoltze,” he said.

Buentemeier picked up most of the historic photos and maps in his collection during his time at Stoltze. He wrote his first time line around 2000, he recalls.

“I wish I’d started working on the history long before I did,” he said.

The Whitefish Community Center will have lunch at 11:30 a.m. before Buentemeier’s talk on April 7. Call 862-4923 to reserve a meal or for more information.