Sawdust and Steam: A History of Sawmilling in the East Otways Ranges 1850-2010 (NH-003)
Product No.: NH-003
Title: Sawdust and Steam: A History of Sawmilling in the East Otways Ranges 1850-2010
Author(s): Houghton, Norman
Illustrator(s): N/A
Publisher: Self-Published
ISBN:
Condition: New
Binding: Soft
Dust Jacket: No
Edition: Revised
Publication Year: 2010
Features: 234 Pages with Black/White Photos.
The Otway Ranges, with their fertile soils and high rainfall, carry some of Australia's finest hardwood forests. Saw millers heavily utilised these forests for mining and building timbers from the 1850s until the last decade; now Great Otway National Park almost encloses them. Devoted to the eastern half of the Otway, and based on an extraordinary series of field investigations, this admirable and enjoyable book is well written, comprehensive, full of historic and contemporary photos, and backed by research in libraries and government archives and many conversations with Otways' saw millers and their descendants.
Otways sawmilling started around 1852 along the coast, providing timber for railway and wharf construction and relying on small ships for transport to markets. Then, from the 1860s and 1870s the industry moved into the ranges, especially from settlements on the northern flanks, such as Forrest and Deans Marsh, with rail connections to Geelong and Melbourne. Sawmilling needed skilled, ingenious, hardy men, ever alert to danger, who could tolerate isolation, and very patient investors, given the timber industry's fluctuations. Not infrequent floods and fires, including in 1939, added further challenges, plus gorges, waterfalls, escarpments, undergrowth, numerous steep slopes and rain and cold.
This is a completely revised and greatly enlarged version of the book first published by the LRRSA in 1975. This edition is published by the author, and is digitally printed. There are many more photographs than in the original edition, and they are well reproduced. The maps are much more detailed and accurate than those published in the first edition as a result of extensive field work. The main maps are printed in two colours