By Ron Brown
 
November 6, 2009
 
MEDFORD, Ore. - The lore of logging runs deep in the Northwest.
 
The image of men swinging axes and pulling long saws through giant trees is iconic. So when gas engines began powering those cross-cut saws, the world began to change. The dragsaw enabled loggers and wood cutters to more than double their production.
 
"A couple brothers in Eureka, California, the Eureka brothers, invented a dragsaw about 1875. It was over 200 pounds. Very heavy. It didn't go over very well. Well, a few years alter they came up with a lightweight model. And of course, it took off and was very popular," said Rich Dougan with the Myrtle Creek Saw Shop.
 
Rex Turner of Beatty presented a Vaughan dragsaw last summer at the Pottsville Antique Engine and Tractor Meet.
 
"It's a gravity feed carburetor... It's got a little spring-operator thing on there. I put the bar switch in. The machine runs on a Model T coil and a battery, so I just pull it back on compression. And it fires and runs, hopefully," Turner said.
 
The saw could be run by one man, letting it cut another log slice while the operator splits the one just cut off into firewood.
 
The Vaughan was made in Portland in the 20s and 30s. But there were several others made in the Northwest. The Wade, also made in Portland, was very popular. They produced other models, including the Columbia and the Multnomah, up until shortly after World War II. Others were larger and more cumbersome, so it's little wonder that saws like the Wade, Vaughn and Eureka were popular.
 
Alan Poole with the Debbs Potts Foundation.
 
There was a simpler version, this man-powered saw that billed itself as a light-weight alternative to the power saws that could weigh a hundred pounds or more.
 
They haven't made saws like this for years. But when these things came out in the early 20th century, they really improved the amount of work that loggers could do out in the woods and made the work of sawing up logs a lot easier. But this was not the ultimate tool. That came with the chainsaw.
 
"The earliest chainsaw was a Wolf chainsaw. and that was invented here in Oregon," Dougan said.
 
Dougan says it was another Oregon invention that helped the chainsaw flourish.
 
"A guy named Joe Cox was working in the woods here in Oregon and using a cross-cut. And he got to... watching these wood beetles and the way they would cut the wood. And so he got his magnifying glasses and he went home and he examined those and he designed a chain exactly like those teeth, and that's how Oregon saw chain came to be," Dougan said.
 
Dougan says the McCullouch 4-30 was very popular because it was four horsepower and 'only' weighed 30 pounds. Many of the old makes like McCullouch, Poulan, Pioneer, Mall and others are gone now. They've been replaced largely by Stihl and Husqvarna.
 
Today's saws are more powerful and much lighter. With new environmental controls, Dougan says they are also much more fuel efficient. Nothing like the 200 pound dragsaws that opened the woods to gas power wood cutting.
 
A collection of some 1,500 chainsaws are in the Wayne Sutton Museum in Amboy, Washington, about 45 minutes north of Portland.