From the 1840's to 1920's, logging overshadowed all other industries in Wisconsin as the state's northern pine forests became pineries that supplied logs for the nation's growing demand for building materials. Timber from these forests floated downstream as raw logs or rafts of sawn lumber, and the Wisconsin River was the most treacherous of the lumber streams, where many raftsmen lost their lives running logs over rapids and whitewater. In 1916, long after railroads had arrived, one of the state's last great river drives took place on the Rib River below. By the 1920's, most of the northern pineries had been logged off, and Wisconsin's logging era was drawing to a close.