Pennsylvania Lumber Museum

The Pennsylvania Lumber Museum is near Galeton, Potter County, Pennsylvania in the United States. It documents the history and technology of the lumber industry that was a vital part of the economic development and ecological destruction of Pennsylvania. It is on U.S. Route 6 between Galeton and Coudersport and just down the road from Denton Hill State Park and is surrounded by Susquehannock State Forest. The museum opens for the season in March and closes in December. The museum is open from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday during the spring and summer months and from 9 to 5 Wednesday through Saturday in the autumn months. The museum offers membership in the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum Associates, a volunteer organization that provides support staff, demonstrators, etc., for the museum. The Pennsylvania Lumber Museum conducts tours of the grounds, educational workshops and classes. It also hosts the occasional Lumberjack competition.
Prior to the arrival of William Penn and his Quaker colonists to Pennsylvania in 1682, it has been estimated that up to 90% of Pennsylvania was covered with over 20 million acres of woods that consisted of a variety of white pine, Eastern hemlock, and a mix of hardwoods. Over 300 years later nearly all of the once enormous landscape of old-growth forest is gone. The forest near the early settlements in Philadelphia, Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery Counties were the first to be harvested as the early settlers used the readily available timber to build homes, barns and ships and to clear land for farming purposes. The demand for lumber slowly increased and by the time of the American Revolution the lumber industry had reached the interior and mountainous regions of Pennsylvania. Incredibly tall and straight trunks of white pine and hemlock were lashed together on rafts and floated down the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers to Baltimore and Philadelphia for use as masts on all sorts of sailing ships. Some of the early pioneers saw business opportunities in the forests surrounding their new homes and they opened water powered sawmills along the banks of creeks like the Loyalsock, Lycoming and Larrys Creek. Lumber soon became one of the leading industries in Pennsylvania. In addition to constructing homes and ships the trees of Pennsylvania were used to furnish fuel to heat homes, tannin for the many tanneries that were spread throughout Pennsylvania, wood for furniture and barrel making, large areas of trees were harvested by colliers to fire the iron furnaces of Cornwall, Greenwood and Pine Grove, rifle stocks and shingles were made as were a wide variety of household utensils, the first Conestoga wagons were built using the abundant supplies of lumber that were growing on the hillsides and in the valleys of Pennsylvania.

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