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America's Last Logging Camp Was A Child's Paradise; Now It's Gone

KNKX Public Radio | By Will James

Published July 28, 2018 at 10:01 AM PDT

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Children of Grisdale loggers have fond memories of the camp's two-room schoolhouse. Some said they struggled to adjust to bigger public schools.

Courtesy of Donna Kinnaird

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Many people who grew up in Grisdale remember it as a child's paradise. But for loggers, the work was sometimes deadly.

Courtesy of Debbie Dobson

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Grisdale was like a ready-made town, built more than 30 miles from the closest town, Montesano.

Courtesy of Debbie Dobson

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Debbie Dobson, far left, visits the tree where her father's ashes are scattered on Aug. 13, 2016. Dobson, along with her grandchildren and mother, Pat Turner, stand near where Dobson's childhood home once stood in Grisdale.

Will James / knkx

This story originally aired on September 17, 2016.

Imagine growing up in a state to total innocence and freedom.

You're a child, and you have an infinity of woods and mountains to explore. You eat fresh blackberries your mother picks in the forest. All the dangers of the modern world are miles away.

Everyone in town is like an uncle, a mother, a grandmother. They dress up as Santa Claus for Christmas and stage a big egg hunt every Easter.

That's how people describe growing up in Grisdale, a remote logging camp nestled for decades deep in the Olympic National Forest. It was the last of America's logging camps, ready-made towns set up by lumber companies for loggers and their families.

Here's the catch: Someday, before childhood's even over, you have to leave. And when you try to return, it's like the place never existed.

Children of loggers went to a two-room schoolhouse in Grisdale. When they became teenagers, they were bused to bigger schools in Montesano and Aberdeen.

Knkx's Will James spoke to former residents of the camp about how living there shaped their lives -- and what it was like to watch their hometown literally disappear after the camp closed 30 years ago.

"Most people can go back to where they grew up," said Debbie Dobson, standing in the trees where her childhood home stood. "They can go back to their homes. But we can't. This is all we have."

grisdale_montage_for_web_mixdown.mp3

Here is a montage of voices from an Aug. 13, 2016, reunion of former Grisdale residents describing life in America's last logging camp. Voices are those of Chris Welch, Ruth Dally, Tony Johnson, Lovena Jenkins, and Patti Ostenson.