In 1890 Enos Flick purchases 146 acres of land from the United States Government for $182.50. The tree is now an eight-year-old sapling growing on an uphill portion of the land. In 1903 Flick sells the property to Edwin A. Linn, Herbert P. Cedergren, and C.A. Strand for $2200.00. These men begin harvesting the Cedar trees. The trees are cut with axes and hand-saws. The logs are then cut into 54-inch-long sections and split into shingle bolts. A team of oxen is used to deliver the shingle bolts to the Clipper Shingle Company.

In the next forty years virtually all of the old growth timber stands of Cedar, Douglas Fir, and Hemlock will be harvested. Much of the bottomland will become farms and homes. The hillsides are left to regenerate forests. Later, many of these will be harvested a second or third time. Steam donkeys replace oxen, and railroads are used to move the logs from forest to mill to market. Axe and whipsaw give way to the gasoline-powered chain saw. Bulldozers are used to build roads for the diesel trucks that now carry the trees out of the forest. Our tree will survive because the Big Leaf Maple (Acer-Macrophylum) is not a commercially important species.