Editors note: At the moment we don’t know much about the history of this logging company and their trucks. The family is working on getting that history to us, so that we can get it to you. All the photos now have the capability of being enlarged by clicking on them. One great story follows the picture of the truck the story is about.
4th of July 1952
Note the interesting trailer on the right, and the winch truck on the left. That trailer had very interesting capabilities.
Make Room for the Bear
This story was told to the editor by Mr. Copeland’s grand-daughter, Angela, who was also responsible for us getting the truck.
In the mid 1950’s, Mr. Copeland was logging in Yosemite as you can see by the photos and the captions. Like many visitors to Yosemite, Mr Copeland had to deal with the bears. In particular, there was one bear that wanted into the truck to sleep. He may have wanted into the truck originally because there may have been food in there. But, the bear decided that the truck made a great place to sleep. In fact the bear wanted in badly enough to do damage to the door. So, Mr. Copeland removed the door. The bear would climb into the truck at night to sleep, and in the morning, Mr. Copeland would bang on the passenger side door, driving the bear out of the truck so that Mr. Copeland could go to work.
Thanks Angela and the Copeland family
Many More Photos Follow
Hauling out of Yosemite
Mr. Copeland built this trailer for just the purpose shown in these photos. He could load the logs by pushing them under the trailer and then raising them off the ground with a couple of cables. The winch action came from a truck at the rear of the trailer. This truck is shown in one of the previous photos.
Trucks in Yosemite
Ready to unload in Aspen Valley
1951 Trial Run for Davis Lumber Company
Whoops!
Mrs. Sophie Copeland at our 2009 Logging Jamboree. She donated the 45 IH truck to the museum and came to see that we were taking good care of it. Sophie at this time was 91 1/2 years old.
When we showed her the photos that she had given us, now up on the web site, she’d say, “That’s my Al, oh, I wish he could wave at me.”
