The Clyde double drum-cable outhaul log skidder is the last remaining example of a Clyde skidder, a machine developed by the Clyde Iron Works of Duluth, MN, shortly after 1902 and modified several times afterward. In its initial form, it had a steam hoisting engine that could move the machine up and down the track by chain drive and a boom at one or both ends. The hoisting engine also powered a cable drum, and the cable ran over pulleys in the boom and was carried into the woods with the log tongs by men on horseback. After the tongs were attached to a log, the haulage cable was rewound on the drum and the log was dragged along the ground back to the skidder. Cable drums and hoisting engines set in each corner allowed logs to be skidded to the railroad from as many as four directions at once, from as far away as 1000 feet; this type was called a horse outhaul skidder. This machine was an improvement called a cable outhaul skidder, which allowed a light return cable to be taken into the woods, run through a pulley attached to a tree trunk or tall stump, returned to the skidder, and attached to the haulage cable. The return cable then pulled the haulage cable back into the woods, where the tongs were attached to a log for skidding. As soon as the log reached the skidder, the tongs could be detached and sent whining back into the woods by the return cable so the process could be repeated. The system was highly efficient and extremely dangerous: incoming logs could be dragged at speeds up to 8 mph, while the log tongs could be returned at speeds well over 15 mph, and when anything went wrong or people were too close, death usually resulted rather than injury. Builder's number 321 was built for the Vernon Parish Lumber Co. at Kurthwood, LA, at the end of the Red River and Gulf western extension, in October, 1919. When VPLCo shut down in 1929, Crowell and Spencer purchased it to supplement a skidder they were using out of Hutton, LA. When the Hutton operation shut down in 1944, the skidder was brought here and stored. The Crowell Companies had at least five or six of these machines. Alexandria Lumber Co. purchased one of the early single drum machines prior to 1908, and Crowell and Spencer also purchased a double drum machine in that period. Meridian Lumber Co. purchased machine number 310 in May, 1918. Alexandria Lumber purchased skidder number 226 from McNary Lumber Co. in 1924, and Crowell and Spencer probably purchased sister machine number 227 as well. Crowell and Spencer then purchased this machine, number 321, in 1929. In 1953, at least three were stored at Longleaf, but only number 321 survived. No other examples of either a single drum or double drum Clyde skidder exist in the United States.