A Benson raft was a huge seagoing log barge designed to transport large quantities of timber to Southern California. The rafts were used to transport industrial quantities of unprocessed timber at one time over hundreds of miles of waterway. The building of these ended in 1941 when mysterious fires broke out in a short period of time and sabotage was suspected. Four of the 120 rafts lost due to fire or sabotage were lost within a year under suspicion.
About Benson raft in brief
A Benson raft was a huge seagoing log barge designed to transport large quantities of timber to Southern California from the Pacific Northwest and Canada. The rafts were used to transport industrial quantities of unprocessed timber at one time over hundreds of miles of waterway. The technique of building barges this way was efficient and saved transportation costs. This innovation resulted in lower cost of finished lumber and contributed to the boom of the construction industry in the first part of the twentieth century for builders in Southern California. The building of these ended in 1941 when mysterious fires broke out in a short period of time and sabotage was suspected. Four of the 120 rafts lost due to fire or sabotage were lost within a year under suspicion. Only three of the previous 34 years of Benson barges had ever been destroyed by fires, so sabotage is suspected as the cause of all the fires.
The 112th and last Benson log raft barge was launched in 1938 and the last of the 112 log rafts launched in 1941 was a fire that broke out on it and burned for two days before it broke apart scattering loose logs into the Pacific Ocean, causing a navigational hazard off the coast of San Francisco. The previous two barges were pulled by a steamship to San Diego with 1,200 1,500 horse power. The majority of the milled lumber was cut into lumber by the Benson Lumber Company for marketing. The entire timber enterprise venture of logging and lumbering was a commercially successful business for Benson because of being able to save the extravagant transportation costs charged by the railroads.
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This page is based on the article Benson raft published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 10, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
