ID on old logging photo?

Was there some mixed forest around that region? I wouldn't swear to it, but many of the logs in the trestle construction look like cottonwood.

Could be.  I know that until the teens, the dominant tree was chestnut, and when the blight came through, the lumber companies had a race against time to get the trees cut before they died on the spot.

That photo is from the Columbia and Nehalem Valley Railroad in Oregon.  Check out the main photo on this Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...alem_Valley_Railroad

It looks like the photo you posted was taken a moment afterward, since the train has moved forward a bit and the guy in the white shirt moved onto the log.

Thanks for the response.  In the years since I did figure it out, but it's good to have the info posted here.  In any case it's quite a photo.

Wow. Can you imagine the work that went into putting that together? Looks like a giant set of Lincoln logs!

Early (1900) eastern forests were pine/hemlock. Clear cut practices, open the forest floor to a re-growth of today's diverse hardwood forest.  At altitude, ?? above 4,000 ft asl, here in the east, ever-green forests, in general, better survive the harsh winter.  IMO, Mike CT.

The mountain forests in this area (central VA) were being logged for vast tracts of old growth chestnut.  Eventually the blight put an end to it.