Michigan Timber: From River Drives to Ford Charcoal
Logs fill this snowy scene on Michigan’s Ford River, where lumbering supported a community built around sawmills.
Elsewhere in the Upper Peninsula, Henry Ford began buying extensive timberland in 1919 to supply wood for automobile production. His operations near Iron Mountain generated wood scraps that became raw material for another business: charcoal briquettes. That effort to reuse manufacturing waste helped establish the business later known as Kingsford charcoal.
This photograph documents Ford River logging; its date and connection to any particular company remain unconfirmed.
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