Selle logs past for stories of timber camps, CCC projects

(It was on Sept. 30, 2000, that Erik Daarstad and I met with Bob Selle in his home to interview him for the “Sandpoint Centennial” movie. Bob was a natural storyteller and he gave us a great picture of the place he loved so much — Bonner County. As he walked again the paths of yesteryear, he would again feel the excitement of his life experiences and his words would reflect his enthusiasm. In his way of speaking, them became “em,” because became “cause,” and anything to be emphasized was done with a “yeah” or, if really important, “yeah-yeah.” I want to share some of the interview with you because Bob, in his own unique style, gives us a picture of Sandpoint and Bonner County as it was in his time. Today, he shares with us some of the things he did to make his living. Bob Selle died at his Sunnyside home on Sept. 1, 2004, at the age of 88.)

Question: Bob, was there a Selle lumber camp? 

Selle: Yes, it’s called Selle Road now cause that area’s named after the Selle clan. They came here in the 1800s, early, and homesteaded. They logged the timber for the Humbird Lumber Company and logged their timber and this Selle camp was on what is now called the Shingle Mill Road and Selle Road. Yeah. And it’s still there and the farm is still there. Then, they made a farm, you see, after the logging was done, and they raised hogs. Part of the old original barn is there and part of the original house is there — been built onto. Part of it was log as I remember it when I was really little.

Question: After high school, you said you logged some in high school — after that, what did you do?

Selle: Well, I joined the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). I graduated from high school in 1934 and I had a job in a tie mill — I got a job in a tie mill up Trestle Creek  but it wasn’t a good job so I decided to join the CCCs and I stayed in there two years — well, not quite two years. I stayed more than one cause we had a summer camp and then I went to a winter camp. I remember that and then I came back here.

Question: What was that like?

Selle: The CCC’s? Oh, that was working in the woods. You see, the Army ran the camps. You had a captain, a lieutenant, and a cookhouse. They had a mess sergeant, he ran that part, and then they had barracks with bunks in ’em, yeah. They were nice camps, nice food, nice cookhouses and cooks, cause you see; they had 360 men, a company of men. Each camp was a company of men and we worked in the woods. What we did was do blister rust. In those days, a disease called blister rust attacked the white pine and killed them. They had several different kind of currents, like gooseberry, and what not, and from them the rust would spread to another pine. So, they were trying to dig up and eliminate those bushes. We just went through the woods and they strung a string ball on each side of you so you knew your strip and you were supposed to dig ’em all out. I think there were about five men to a crew that went between the string lines. But it didn’t work. They couldn’t get ’em all, you see. The blister rust finally killed off the old Idaho white pine. There isn’t any around much. Once in a while, you can find one but not very many. In those days, a white pine was only worth $8 a thousand board feet. Now they are $800 — if you can find ’em. Yeah. We are talking money, you know.

Question: After the CCC’s, what did you do?

Selle: Well, when I left the CCC’s, I got a job from a local contractor here working on a construction job and it happened to be down in Plummer, Idaho, down in there. We were  building an over head across the railroad — I worked on a pile driver. The foreman on the pile driver knew me and he said I could come and work for him if I wanted to, so I did that. I did that for about a year and after that was about the time that I got married.

I then got a job with L.D. McFarland Company, which was a pole company. They were also logging again and I got a job in their treating plant and then they moved me up in the woods and I had a logging camp. I was foreman of the logging camp. We made cedar poles and we made the poles by hand. The men worked alone, each one. They got paid so much for each pole depending on the size. They worked alone. They bucked em down with their cross cuts and then they peeled em with their broad axes — had to peel em. I did that for about four years. Then I came back down and was foreman at the treating plant and that’s where I finished up my work years. I worked there for 42 years.

Question: What would you do in a treating plant?

Selle: Well, you took the poles and you treated em with creosote, a preservative, see. After you treated ’em, you loaded ’em up. They were used for power poles. The small poles were used for telephone and the larger poles for transmission lines and distribution lines. They still do it the same way. Yeah, yeah.

Question: Did you retire from there?

Selle: Yep, I went to work for ’em, I worked 42 years, and I retired from there. Yeah, yeah.

(To be continued)