As people left the Main Store a non-descript weatherboard building lay before them. As far as I know this building was never opened to the public. I gained access to it on a couple of occasions. It was full of a number of historical items including a few saddles and harnesses. The last time I entered it was with a couple of other volunteers as we removed a restored old petrol bowser. It had been decided to put it on display on the rear verandah of the Cabin Restaurant. The shed’s original purpose, however, was to accommodate the Workshops’ saddler.
Horses were originally a major part of Millars’ workforce. In the early days the timber industry used teams of bullocks to pull the large logs out of the bush, but by the early 1900s draught horses like Shires and Clydesdales were used. In either case, the timber workers were dependent on leather items to attach the animals to the vehicles carrying the logs.
In the early days there were many, often ingenious, devices utilized to extract the timber from the forest. The most common of these were whims, jinkers, wagons or sleds. Whims, probably developed at Canning Mill between 1870 and 1890 and built by Richard Weston, became the more popular means of moving the massive logs. These required eight to fifteen horses to pull the logs weighing up to twenty tons. All of these, however, were dependent on horse power. They continued in use until as late as the early 1950s.[1]
In 1909 the Company reported that they had over one thousand horses. The Yarloop Mills alone had, at one time, 250 horses that were mostly working in the bush. I will mention more about these when I write about the Chaff Shed.
Initially Millars had their leather made and maintained by saddlers in Perth, or by itinerant saddlers. After 1919 an ex-10th Light Horse saddler set up shop in the main street of Yarloop. After a short while the Millars’ Company offered him a job at one of their mills where he made and maintained the leather items. They also allowed him to continue to do private leather jobs like making boots, leggings, saddle bags, belts and other such items. At the mill he probably also made and maintained items like the drive belts in the mill itself and at the bush landings. After a couple of years the Company supplied him with the Saddle Shop at the Workshops where he had ready access to the Workshops and all their mills in the area. He, and later his apprentice, did this work for many years.[2]
Though the Saddle Shop ceased to be used decades before the Workshops closed after Cyclone Alby in about 1978, it was said that the aroma of leather, linseed oil and neatsfoot oil lingered long afterwards.[3]
A team of twenty one horses pulling a whim hauling a karri log weighing thirty tons at Karridale in the early 1900s. From Millars’ Karri & Jarrah Company (1902) Limited 1909 Report.
An early site-plan showing the Saddle Shop (Building 40).
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[1] Jack Bradshaw, Jinkers and Whims; a pictorial history of timber-getting, Vivid Publishing, c2012.
[2] Geoff Fortune, Yarloop Workshops Welcome You, published by Geoff Fortune and the Yarloop Workshops Inc., 2007.
[3] ‘The Phoenix Rises Very Slowly’, Part 35 (October 2024) by Allan Ward, Hon. Curator.