Traunik Saw Mill 

by Robert Lustick

In 1937 Joe Sterle and I started in the trucking business. We hauled logs for Nick Segan from Little Lake to Escanaba. We were there until the camp closed around 1940. After that we went to haul logs for Herman Viau and during that time we bought 160 acres of timber forest from the state. We started logging our own timber and would go every day to cut two truckloads of pulpwood to take to the Munising Paper Company. We had to load and unload the trucks by hand. Later on they had cranes, which was much easier to do. One morning I went to the woods and Joe was not there. I went to his house in winters, and Joe was in bed. He had a heart attack. After he recuperated, Joe, my brother Lud, and I bought the garage in Trenary because he could not work in the woods anymore. I did not enjoy working in the garage and sold my share. I really wanted to be back in the woods so I started trucking again. 

At this period of time there were floating sawmills, one of which was owned by Mr. Brown. If a farmer had some logs and wanted lumber to be cut, the sawmill owner would move his mill to the farm. In the spring logs could not be hauled because of the thaw and there was a weight limit put on the roads. It was at this time of not working that I got to thinking of buying a sawmill and have the logs brought to my mill to be sawed. The market was good for hardwood, birch, maple, and I bought a larger sawmill, I contracted with Chicago Northwestern Railroad and the Soo Line Railroad to cut railroad ties, and the lumber that came from the side of the log was sold to lumber buyers. 

We skidded the logs to the mill with horses. Joe Zbachnik (Herpcan) was my teamster. Later I bought a Ford tractor to skid and used cant hooks to turn the logs. I had a 70 horsepower diesel motor to run the sawmill. 

Some of the men that I recall now that worked for me were: Joe Shega, Frankie Bartol, Louis Bartol, Joe Zbacnik, Hank Strukel, Herman Koresh, Frank Koresh, and Albin Knaus. All the men changed off jobs and were able to handle any part of the work in the sawmill. The sawmill was a good business while it lasted. When the war ended, lumber was getting hard to sell, so I went out of the sawmill business and back into logging. 

The mill was closed in 1952. One of the remains of the sawmill era is an apple tree. Herpcan would eat an apple for lunch everyday and toss the core away. The tree is still producing fruit and keeps the deer well fed. Robert Debelak and I bought some timberland of good hardwood timber from Vince Truden and logged that for several years. After that we bid on federal and state timber and worked together for ten years. I retired and Robert continued to cut logs for other loggers for a few years until he retired.