Paul Searles \(ins Log-Bucldng Contest at Op"nins of Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco's mighty Golden Gate Bridge, gateway to the Redwood Empire, is open to the public. Its dedication was completed in five days of Fiesta pageantry unparalleled in San Francisco history, during which more than a half million visitors came to the city.

San Francisco and neighboring cities were decorated in the California Redwood motif, with each lamp post. on famous Market Street and Van Ness Avenue depicting a Redwood tree and the great stage at the Fiesta ampitheatre decorated to resemble a Redwood forest scene with the great bridge itself as the backdrop.

Most significant of all was the, p"tt that the lumber industry played in the actual opening of the bridge. Sponsored by the California Redwood Association, with the cooperation of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association and the three major saw companies, Disston's, Atkins and Simonds, the official severing of the barriers to the bridge approach was accomplished by three log-sawing champions of the West, led by World's Champion Paul Searles of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Longview, Washington.

To Searles went the honor of severing the 36-inch California Redwood barrier in 2 minutes, 47.8 seconds, defeating Myron Higbee, champion of Idaho Pine, and Ray Shull of Eureka, champion of the California Redwoods.

While Governors of California and Oregon, the Lord Mayor of Vancouver, the Mayor of San Francisco, Chief Engineer Joseph Strauss and scores of dignitaries waited at the barrier, Searles, Higbee and Shull pulled with mighty strokes to clear the way for the great dedication party.

Searles showed the same championship form which has carried him through nine successive years of undefeated competition. It was his day and the big boy from Wash- ington won as he pleased, taking $25O cash prize for himself and his loyal filer, Arthur Graham, in addition to the honor of opening the bridge. Higbee won $150 and Shull $100.

Before a crowd of several thousand people at the amphitheatre the following day, Searles again defeated Higbee and Shull, this time with a mark of 3:06, but with Shull of the Redwoods taking second over Higbee. Searles copped $400 in prize money for his two days' competition, and his two competitors $200 each.

Carl W. Bahr, president of the California Redwood Association, was chairman of the Log Barrier Contest Committee, which included G. A. Slacke, Henry Disston & Sons; A. L. Johnson, Simonds Saw and Steel Co'; Walter Orcutt, E. C. Atkins & Co.; George Cornwall, The Timberman; Sam }fawkins, West Coast Lumberman; James Stevens, West Coast Lumbermen's Association; E. H. Meiklejohn, Pacific Northwest Loggers Association; Dr. M. M. Eaton, Kellogg, Idaho, Chamber of Commerce; Richard Fleisher, Scotia; and Laurence Beal, Humboldt Standard. Eureka.

Officials of the contest were Archie Whisnant, secretary of the Pacific Logging Congress, Portland, Oregon, referee and starter; Gordon Manary, logging superintendent, The Pacific Lumber Company, chief judge; J. E. Mackie, manager, National Lumber Manufacturers Association, San Francisco, and Irving McCoy, West Coast Lumbermen's Association, associate judges; and Chief Timekeeper, Tod Powell of the San Francisco Chronicle, with his staff including Joe Dearing, San Francisco CallBulletin; Scoop Beal, Humboldt Standard, Eureka, and Will N. Speegle, Humboldt Times, Eureka.