Historic Log Flume

1890 - 1910

In the early years of Dallas, before the coming of logging trucks, the Arboretum site provided a vital service for Dallas Industry. This was when timber cut in the high country came crashing down La Creole Creek to an early sawmill in Dallas. A series of 3 dams along this small creek held water to boost logs along when sufficient rainfall flooded the upper creek. At a curve in the La Creole, where the Arboretum is now, a diversion dam propelled the logs into a flume, which carried them into a Mill Pond, now Dallas City Park. The sawmill was located at the West entrance to the park and is identified now by a large cross section of log erected there. Remaining in the Arboretum is the last visible trace of this hazardous early logging, the old Flume. the channel has been a verdant fern and flower path for years, but now it has been re-identified as the Historic Log Flume. Today when rains fill La Creole Creek, the flood waters still rush into the Arboretum through the old Flume. Flume: an inclined channel for conveying water usually from a distance for various uses (as power production, transportation, or irrigation).

Arboretum Enhancement Project

Project Coordination and Funding Provided By:

• Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board
• Friends of Delbert Hunter Arboretum
• City of Dallas
• Rickreall Watershed Council
• Herrera Environmental Consulants

Additional Support from:

• Weyerhaeuser
• Dalton Rock
• Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
• NOAA Fisheries
• Polk Soil and Water Conservation District
• Naturak Resources Conservation Service
• OSU Fisheries Students
• Boise Cascade
• Polk County
• James W. Fowler Co.
• Agate Construction Co.
• Tanglewood Timber
• Whites Hauling
• Valley Concrete and Gravel
• Grande Ronde Tribe
• Polk Co. Youth Corp.
• Community Volunteers