Cutting timber, Karridale Timber Station, Western Australia

Abstract

Photograph of timber-cutters in a forest. Four men stand on a platform around the base of a large tree and saw at the trunk with a long blade, while a man on horseback watches. A cut has already been made on the other side of the tree and two axes have been stuck into the trunk above the men's heads. The trees are probably eucalyptus diversicolor, known as karri. Maurice Coleman Davies, who established a sawmill in the area in 1884 named it Karridale after the virgin karri forest in the area. In its heyday, the timber station town was populated with 300 timber workers and their families and had a school and a hospital. The town declined when the sawmill closed in 1913 and in 1961 a fire destroyed most of the remaining buildings.