Steam Donkey

Steam Donkey was composed for the Weaver Middle School Wind Ensemble of Merced, California, Ashley Shine, Director of Bands. In 1993, composer Gary P. Gilroy took a job at as a band director at Fresno State in Central California moving his family to Clovis, California. That same summer Dr. Gilroy and his family began to explore the mountain town of Shaver Lake, just east of Fresno in the Sierra Mountains of California. The lake was originally created to accommodate lumber operations floating logs from one side of the lake to the other. The Gilroy family fell in love with the area and began to spend plenty of leisure time there hiking, swimming, camping and learning more about the region and it’s famous logging history. The composer was fascinated with some of the early machinery that made logging possible. The Museum of the Central Sierra is located at the entrance to Camp Edison and it has a wonderful display of several Steam Donkeys. While these machines were very dangerous for the men who worked on them, they made it possible to move massive logs through the forest. These fascinating Steam Donkeys were the inspiration for this composition for concert band. The Clarke Historical Museum of Eureka, California provides an excellent description of a Steam Donkey and how it was used: A Steam Donkey is a portable steam engine equipped with cables and one or more revolving drums that found a score of uses in the industry, particularly in yanking felled logs through the weeds to a central collecting yard. Invented by John Dolbeer in 1881, the Steam Donkey revolutionized the logging industry in the northwest. Dolbeer developed a small, high-pressure steam engine to turn a rope spool that could reel in even the largest trees with ease. At first the mechanical donkeys were used to haul logs from the forest to the bull teams waiting to pull them down the skid roads en route to the mill ponds where they would wait to be processed. Later, when rope was replaced with steel cable, the bull teams were completely replaced by this powerful new invention. In order to operate the donkey, three men, a horse and a boy were needed. The line was first attached to a horse and pulled through the forest to the site of a freshly fallen log. A choker setter was responsible for attaching the line to the fallen tree, a spool tender would use a short stick to guide the line back on the spool, and the donkey puncher operated the steam engine throughout the process. The boy, referred to as a "whistle punk," operated a communication wire which would sound a steam whistle when the choker was properly set on the log, signaling the donkey puncher and spool tender to begin pulling it in. Steam donkeys evolved over time and were used in all aspects of log transport in the timber industry, such as guiding log rafts of logs downriver, replacing bull teams on the skid roads, and lowering logging trains safely down steep inclines. Dolbeer's Steam Donkey continued to be the industry standard until it was rendered obsolete by improvements to the internal combustion engine in the early 20th century. (text & photos used w/permission)


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