The Saint Maries River Valley was said to have the largest single stand of white pine in the world, drawing homesteaders and lumberjacks by wagon road and boats to its vast stands of western white pine, fir, tamarack, and cedar. In 1887 the Fisher brothers built the first sawmill on the St. Joe, milling lumber for frame buildings, the railroad bridge at Chatcolet, and extensive docks along the St. Maries waterfront. Winter logging was common, and lumberjacks in calked boots and woolen clothes used 5' to 7' long crosscut saws and axes to fall giant trees as rough camps spread through the St. Joe and St. Maries river valleys. In the winter of 1905, ten camps on Santa Creek alone produced 80,000,000 board feet of timber. Logs were stockpiled along streams until spring breakup and then floated downstream from remote mountainsides, while log drivers called river pigs risked their lives in treacherous currents for $3.00 a day, and some died. Over time, railroads and roads replaced the log drive, but the timber industry remained the mainstay of St. Maries.