- The Tie Hack industry was an industry that supported the rail roads and there were rail roads all over the country.

And wherever there was a rail road, there was a source of ties.

(upbeat music) (somber music) In the early 1800's, the United States, still in its infancy, relied on the development of the railway system as a key player in its industrial revolution and later, its expansion west.

Railways became the lifeblood of the nation - they determined what industries would succeed, where population centers would emerge, and drove the country's economy.

Wyoming became a microcosm of that model - with the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, Wyoming was now an important industrial hub.

With a way to transport them, agricultural and mineral resources in Wyoming became viable industries and people came.

A rail system is very interesting, it sits on a bed of crushed rock.

The ties are laid in that crushed rock and then the rails are set upon the ties and rails are spiked to the ties.

And so that entire system floated on the crushed rock bed.

(somber music) Starting around 1915, the area around Dubois began to be harvested for ties.

The men who cut these ties were known as tie hacks.

Many of the men that came were from Scandinavia.

The company that started the Tie Hack industry eventually became known as the Wyoming Tie and Timber company, and their headquarters were in Riverton, Wyoming, but the work was all up here in the mountains west of Dubois and both the Absaroka and Wind River Range.

These rail road ties went to the Chicago and Burlington and Quincy Rail Road and eventually, the Chicago and North Western Rail Roads, 'cause those are the rail roads that were up here in this country.

(somber music) A rail road tie had to be, for the most part, eight feet long and eight inches square, and the earlier requirements for that tie was that it be flat on two sides.

The reason for that was flat so that it stayed on the ground and the other opposite side was so that the rails could be put on it.

(upbeat music) When a tree was felled, they would pick an appropriate sized tree and then they would go to work with a double bit ax.

So he would drop the tree, he would go along the tree with his ax and trim off all of the branches, that means in the length to see how many ties he was gonna get out of that tree.

He would stay with that double bit ax and the two horizontal sides, he would score with the double bit ax.

(upbeat music) Then he would come along with the broad ax and that's an ax that has a broad head and it's flat on one side and the he would go along with that broad ax and trim all of that slash that he just done with the double bit ax.

He would then measure out the eight foot lengths and with a cross cut saw, he would cut that log into the eight foot lengths.

Then he'd roll the log over and trim the branches off of the bottom of the log and at that point, the log was ready to become a tie.

He would mark that one end of that tie so that he knew that it was his tie.

A tie hack might cut as many as 25 or 30 ties in a day and then he would get paid depending on what the price was at the time.

It could range anywhere from 15 cents to 25 cents a tie.

(upbeat music) So from 1915 till the late 20's, most of the ties were cut by hand.

Then the diesel type portable saw mills became part of the cutting and shaping process.

The logs then would be dragged out of the forest, along the river banks and then that's where the logs were decked.

And decking was stacking those logs with the butts of the logs facing the river and those stacks could be 15 or 20 feet high, side by side, all the way along the river bank where they would gather those ties.

(dramatic music) For a few years, during World War 2, an unexpected group added to the ranks of the tie hacks About 1944 till 1946, there was a German prisoner of war camp up on Little Warm Springs Creek and that camp was staffed with about 140 prisoners of war.

By most accounts, these soldiers took to the life of the timber industry, laboring in the mountains, and in many ways endearing themselves to the other tie hacks and to Dubois.

Many came back after the war, and some even stayed and lived in and around Dubois.

(somber music) The ties didn't go in the river until the river crested, which was about the middle of June.

That means that the high water has ceased and so there's a low spot in the middle of the river, that's when the ties were all pushed into the water.

(dramatic music) Everybody participated on the river drive.

When you look at the lay of the land of the Wind River up here, it's full of rocks, it's twisty, it's fast and it was a real chore and log jams were not an uncommon thing on the river drives.

OSHA would have had a nightmare during those days.

The tie jams had to be freed up by finding the key logs and undoing them with a long pull with a point on the end of it, called it a pike pull, and these guys would literally get out on the log jams and start trying to get those logs undone.

These guys had to be incredibly strong and have a great understanding and be about 95% daredevil to keep those logs flowing down the river.

It would take them, probably into and around the 4th of July to finally clean up all of the logs off the river bank and get them all down to Riverton to where they were sorted and then processed.

(dramatic music) (somber music) Dubois celebrates its tie drive legacy in many ways.

They hold Swedish smorgasbords to commemorate the big meal that the tie hacks had after the tie drive was over.

They also use the very same dutch ovens that fed the tie camps for various celebrations.

Riverton has remnants of the tie drive influence as well.

The treatment and sorting plant is no longer there, but a rails to trails project allows pedestrians to visit the site.

Also, in the Riverton Cemetery is a plot dedicated to the tie hacks who were so important to the area.

tie hacks who were so important to the area.

32 tie hacks lay in this plot with a hand hewn tie memorial to their contributions It was almost a 24/7 365 job.

Because it was that critical to the rail roads, especially during the war years.

It wasn't an easy day, but it was a day that all of them liked, or they wouldn't have been here.

They came for the thrill of the mountains, for the openness of the mountains, the freedom that the mountains offer and a place to earn a living and raise a family.

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