Construction and Cooling:

The Green River long supported major industries that provided jobs to many people in the area. One of the first was the harvest of railroad ties, and from 1868 to 1945 spring runoff brought ties cut and shaped by tie hacks in the forests of the Upper Green River floating down to town, where they piled against a large gate or boom across the river before being loaded onto railcars for shipment to creosote treatment plants. A related business was sawn lumber, supplied by a steam-powered sawmill near the confluence of the Green River and Bitter Creek that operated from 1868 to 1920 and provided construction lumber for the expanding towns of southwest Wyoming. Before refrigeration, winter ice harvest was also an important seasonal industry, with blocks of natural ice cut from the frozen river by horse-drawn and hand saws, hauled to ice houses in Green River and Rock Springs, and packed with sawdust for sale to homes and businesses through the summer. Cutting railroad ties and river ice were dangerous jobs for the hardy, adventurous men of the early days. Today, concrete and steel ties have replaced wood, refrigerators are common, and although ice houses and tie hacks have disappeared, people still work the Green River by fishing for the big one below.

Green River, Wyoming · United States